Rating: 3/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2016 | 44/52 | Lucio Fulci
October 12, 1959 A woman drives through narrow England streets, across a grassy knoll to the white Dover cliffs. Meanwhile, Virginia, a young girl in an Italian boarding school, walks with her classmates to a vista overlooking Florence.
The woman exits her vehicle and stands at the cliff’s edge. Virginia cries aloud, “Mommy!” and stops dead in her tracks. She peers into the distance as if witnessing the scene in Dover.
The woman leaps from the cliff. Its jagged edges scrape across and cut into her face. Virginia screams and cries. The teacher comes to console Virginia, telling her that her mother is alright. Virginia sees her mother’s body amidst the crashing waves below the cliffs.
Italy, 1977 Virgina, now an adult, has married Francesco. Her rich husband is going away on a business trip. During that time, Virginia plans to renovate a mansion he owns.
Virginia has a vision of a murdered woman — her first since childhood. The people are unfamiliar, but the location is her husband’s mansion. She follows the visions, which lead her to cracked plaster. Behind it, a skeleton.
The police assume the skeleton is a murder victim at the hands of Francesco. Viriginia’s visions lead her into a twisted dream where nothing is as it appears.
The complete movie title, in typical Giallo fashion, is The Psychic: Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes.
Though bloody and bleak, this movie is far from the gorefests of Fulci’s later Gates of Hell trilogy. It feels more like A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, with a stronger focus but less fun.
The film delights in the decadence of its setting — elaborate decor, horseback riding, beautiful gardens. It adds a bit of a Gothic quality, but the story leans more into the mystery than establishing an atmosphere.
I wish I found this as fun as others do. I like it, but it’s not a movie I would watch again. Then again, I may have burnt myself out on Giallo.
** Stray Thoughts/Spoilers **
- “Look, Counselor, I’ve never killed any of my lovers, and there have been 56 so far. I keep count of them, you know!”
- “I didn’t think — it just came to me! I always make mistakes when I think.”
- Bruna is an excellent plot expediter — she’s already done most of the leg work.
- The zooms are, somehow, more over-the-top than usual. A scene involves a ringing phone with the camera zooming in and out to the ring’s frequency.
- A guy hangs up without saying goodbye, and the person on the other says, “Hello? Hello?” It wasn’t always a movie trope, I suppose.
- The movie hits us over the head with, “You saw into the future.”
- — “Let me see your license, senore.” — “No, so frig you.” [speeds off]