Sette Note in Nero(Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes/
The Psychic/L'Emurée Vivante)
Synopsis: Virginia, a woman with a history of "psychic" premonitions, experiences sinister visions before arriving at her new husband's villa. She "sees" a woman being walled up, dying, in a room with a red lamp and a broken mirror; a magazine cover with a woman's face on it; a taxi, a man with a limp, and a painting; and other disconnected images.
Once she arrives at the villa, she begins to connect the house with the disturbing images in her visions. She soon discovers a corpse walled up in one of the rooms. Naturally, the police immediately arrest her husband, and Virginia tries to follow the other clues of her vision to find the real killer.
At first, luck seems to be on her side, as the pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together. Then, unexpectedly, everything begins to fall apart, until she is no longer sure if the murder she saw in her vision is the one she discovered... or if it is her own.
Notes: This was Fulci's favorite of his thrillers. Although is failed miserably at the box office when it was first released, it was one of three films chosen for a Fulci retrospective after the director's death in March, 1996 (along with the early Urlatore alla Sbarra and Fulci's first major success, Una sull'Altra). Also, director Quentin Tarantino tried to secure the rights to this movie (under its American title, The Psychic) for re-release in 1997 as part of his new video line, Rolling Thunder. He was ultimately unable to do this, and instead he re-released the better-known L'Aldilà.
There are some unconvincing bits; for instance, the cheap gore effects in the opening sequence, which makes reference to Fulci's earlier Non Si Sevizia un Paperino, can't cover up the fact that it's a mannequin that's falling to its death; and the deliberately fractured time-line at one point gives the impression that a character has been discovered, hospitalized and interrogated in the space of about 15 minutes!
Still, this is overall one of the best and most rewarding gialli. Though it's a bit slow in spots, and suffers from the "mechanical" structure that Fulci recognized as his chief failing, this movie holds together remarkably well. Like Fulci's other "thrillers", the suspense doesn't come from exciting action, but from the buildup of dread in the face of an inescapable doom.
The soundtrack by Bixio, Frizzi and Tempera is particularly interesting. Though overly repetitive (like the film itself) and indifferently performed, it adds to the atmosphere in many subtle ways. There is a scene, for instance, in which Virginia enters a house, accompanied by typical "suspense movie" music that builds as she goes up the stairs. Just as she's about to enter the room, the music, which we find out was actually on the phonograph, clicks off. The really clever bit, though, comes later, when Virginia is face to face with the killer: slowly, quietly, the "suspense movie" music creeps back into the soundtrack.