THE
PSYCHIC (1977) Limited Edition Blu-ray
Director: Lucio Fulci
Scorpion Releasing
Lucio Fulci ponders the inescapable nature of fate with his paranormal
giallo THE PSYCHIC, on Blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing.
As a child in Italy, American interior decorator Virginia (Jennifer O'Neill,
SCANNERS) telepathically saw the brutal death of her mother (Elizabeth Turner,
WAVE OF LUST) miles away in England. Over the years she has had other visions
that have not come to pass, but none so clearly as those of an old woman murdered
by a limping man and walled up that assail her on the way home from seeing her
husband Francesco (Gianni Garko, COLD EYES OF FEAR) off on business trip. Her
parapsychologist friend Luca (Marc Porel, THE SISTER OF URSULA) believes they
are hallucinations caused by stress, so an exasperated Virginia decides to busy
herself by restoring a long-derelict country house belonging to her husband.
While cleaning up a room, she is assailed by the visions again and realizes
that it is the room in which the woman was walled up. Taking a pickaxe to the
wall she unearths a skeleton. When the police investigate, she is surprised
to discover that the forensics team have determined that the skeleton belongs
to a twenty-five year old girl probably dead for the last four or five years
rather than on old woman. Francesco's ownership of the villa makes him a suspect,
more so than his sister Gloria (Evelyn Stewart, THE BLOODSTAINED BUTTERFLY)
when it is discovered that he had a brief relationship with the murdered girl
Agnese Bignardi who was reported missing in 1972. When Francesco is arrested,
Virginia looks to Luca to help her decipher her visions, leading her to a museum
curator (Gabrielle Ferzetti, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST), a mystery involving
a stolen Vermeer painting, and sightings of the supposedly dead older woman
(Veronica Michielini) who might be a ghost; but there may be more horror to
come in the future rather than the past.
Lucio Fulci's fourth giallo following his jazzy 1960s ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER,
the psychedelic A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN, and the rural horrors of DON'T TORTURE
A DUCKLING, THE PSYCHIC was one of the most accessible Fulci films from his
pre-ZOMBIE days for American viewers. While Dario Argento's influential DEEP
RED offered up a series of DON'T LOOK NOW-esque imagery that found analogs in
the film's climax, THE PSYCHIC provides a concrete series of images and it is
through the progression of the narrative that we discover that the mystery lies
in their false initial interpretation as they fall into place – in a way,
a novel variation on Argento's "I saw something important but I don't understand
its significance yet" mechanism – before an almost unbearably tense
drawn-out finale. Like DEEP RED, THE PSYCHIC is a film in which it pays to rewatch
it to see those clues falling into place (even if editor Vincenzo Tomassi does
bludgeon viewers over the head when they appear). The final moments are not
so much open-ended as the expected part of the resolution is just unnecessary
to depict. After his cycle of gothic horror films in the early eighties, Fulci
would return to the giallo with the brutal NEW YORK RIPPER, the stylishly silly
MURDER-ROCK, and the supernatural-tinged VOICES FROM BEYOND while a variation
on THE PSYCHIC's finale would also find its way into THE BLACK CAT. Fabio Frizzi
(THE BEYOND) in collaboration with Vince Tempera (THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS) and Franco
Bixio (SILVER SADDLE) provide a score that is simultaneously Goblin-esque while
centered around a carillon melody of seven notes not unlike an Ennio Morricone
giallo score. Although not shot in Techniscope, the photography of future Fulci
regular Sergio Salvati (THE WAX MASK) is occasionally inventive while this may
be the only film in Fulci's cannon where his fixation on close-ups of eyes is
narratively justified. The film also features Fabrizio Jovane (CITY OF THE LIVING
DEAD's Father Thomas) as a police commissioner, THE STENDHAL SYNDROME's Luigi
Diberti as the prosecutor, ENIGMA ROSSO's Fausta Avelli as Virginia in the flashbacks,
THE VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS' Bruno Corazzari as a racing jockey, and THE SUSPICIOUS
DEATH OF A MINOR's Jenny Tamburi as Luca's secretary who is more assertive in
digging up clues than Virginia or Luca.
Produced as SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK referring to a central clue and prepared for
export as MURDER TO THE TUNE OF SEVEN BLACK NOTES, the film was released theatrically
in the United States by Brandon Chase's Group 1 International in 1979 as THE
PSYCHIC with a shortened opening credits sequence and the end credits lopped
off (a treatment Group 1 also gave to the Silvio Amadio's giallo AMUCK), and
it arrived on VHS from Lightning Video in that form. Severin Films released
the film on DVD in 2007 in an anamorphic transfer with the English dub and the
featurette "Voices from the Black" with screenwriter Dardanno Sachhetti
(DEMONS), costume designer Massimo Lentini (TROLL 2), and editor Bruno Micheli
(ANTHROPOPHAGUS). A stacked two-disc DVD edition followed in France from Neo
Publishing that included an English track but no English subtitles for the Italian
audio commentary by cinematographer Salvati or the second disc with an hour-long
documentary, an interview with actor Garko, composer Frizzi, and editors Ornella
and Bruno Micheli. The first Blu-ray came out in Germany in 2015 from Elea Media
once again with English audio but no translation for the commentary by German
film historian Marcus Stiglegger. That transfer was an upgrade over the DVDs
but an older HD master with the dreaded scanner noise.
Scorpion's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray – featuring the
MURDER TO THE TUNE OF SEVEN BLACK NOTES title card and English opening and ending
credits – boasts of being a new 2018 2K scan of the original 35mm camera
negatives and generally looks good when one takes into account the diffusion
deployed by Salvati in the day exteriors and the various lens occlusions during
the psychic visions while the enhanced detail draws attention to some of the
recurrences of imagery from Virginia's visions before she notices them. The
encoding has been criticized and there are moments zooming into the image where
it seems like the encoder lost the war with the film grain resulting in some
smeary renditions of solid colors and facial features; however, this is nothing
like the replaced first pressing of Blue Underground's Blu-ray of THE STENDHAL
SYNDROME and it may well do for most fans whether a new encode is done for a
standard release or a UK edition pops up (the film has not thus far been released
there theatrically or in any home entertainment format).
Scorpion has recorded a brand new audio commentary by film historian Troy Howarth
– author of "Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films"
– in which he discusses the long path of development of the script with
Fulci and Roberto Gianviti (SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS) initially hired to
adapt Vieri Razzini's novel "Deadly Therapy" for producer Luigi De
Laurentiis (LEVIATHAN). He also discusses the production of the film, its plotting
(including callbacks to DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING), and analysis of the story
including the unlikely but amusing subtext of Freudian tunnel symbolism. "Defeating
Fate" (50:14) is an interview with screenwriter Sacchetti that includes
audio excerpt from Fulci. Sacchetti rehashes the story of Fulci and Gianviti
working on the Razzini adaptation and getting nowhere, De Laurentiis bringing
him in because he had worked with Argento on CAT O'NINE TAILS and Bava's A BAY
OF BLOOD, which angered Fulci who thought he was there to spy on them for the
producer. Gianviti helped Sacchetti learn to work with Fulci, but the adaptation
they completed was rejected by de Laurentiis. A disagreement about whether it
was possible to escape one's predetermined fate lead to the development of what
would become THE PSYCHIC which Fulci choosing the SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK based
on the mechanism that allows the circumventing to fate, but the script would
also be rejected by de Laurentiis before it found another company. Sacchetti
is disappointed that the film flopped upon release because he considers it a
"jewel" in the genre and is pleased that it later found an audience.
The disc also includes a stills gallery (2:29), the American trailer (1:06)
which gives the twist away (like the poster tagline), a reversible cover with
new artwork on the front and the American artwork on the back, a limited edition
slipcover, and a 9x11 mini poster with artwork by Wes Benscoter.
(Eric
Cotenas)
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