Italian horror in the seventies was just different. It had this greasy, stylish, and utterly paranoid energy that Hollywood couldn't quite replicate, no matter how hard they tried. If you’ve ever gone down the rabbit hole of European genre cinema, you’ve probably stumbled across The Psychic, or as it was originally known in Italy, Sette note in nero. Released in 1977, this film is a massive touchstone for fans of the "giallo" genre, yet it often gets overshadowed by the flashier, bloodier works of Dario Argento. That's a mistake.
Lucio Fulci directed it. Yes, that Lucio Fulci—the guy who eventually became the "Godfather of Gore" with movies like Zombie and The Beyond. But in 1977, he was operating with a surgeon's precision rather than a butcher’s cleaver.
The plot is tight. It’s about a woman named Virginia, played by the luminous Jennifer O'Neill, who has been plagued by psychic visions since she was a child. She sees a vision of a murder—a wall being broken down, a skeleton, a specific room—and then she realizes it’s not a memory. It’s the future. Or maybe it’s the past? The movie plays with time like a cat with a ball of yarn. It’s genuinely stressful.
What Actually Happens in the Psychic Movie 1977
Virginia is newly married to a rich Italian businessman. Everything seems great until she’s driving through a tunnel and sees a series of flashes: an old woman’s face, a shattered mirror, and a corpse hidden behind a brick wall. Most people would just pull over and have a panic attack. Virginia? She decides to investigate. She finds the exact room from her vision in one of her husband’s abandoned properties. She breaks the wall down. There’s a skeleton.
This is where the movie shifts from a supernatural thriller into a full-blown police procedural with a psychic twist. The police think her husband did it. He was linked to the woman who disappeared years ago. But Virginia isn't so sure. The genius of the psychic movie 1977 is that it doesn’t rely on jump scares. It relies on a ticking clock.
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Fulci uses a musical watch as a recurring motif. Every time that chime plays, you know something terrible is coming. It’s a seven-note melody—hence the Italian title Sette note in nero (Seven Notes in Black). It’s haunting. It sticks in your brain. Honestly, it’s one of the best uses of sound in 70s cinema.
The Tarantino Connection and the Giallo Legacy
You can’t talk about this movie without mentioning Quentin Tarantino. He’s a massive fan. If you’ve seen Kill Bill Vol. 1, you might remember the scene where the nurse is whistling a tune while walking down the hallway. That tune? It’s from another movie, but Tarantino actually sampled the main theme from The Psychic for the scene where Uma Thurman’s character wakes up in the hospital. He’s a geek for this stuff. He even helped distribute the film through his Rolling Thunder Pictures label in the 90s because he felt it was a forgotten masterpiece.
Why does it matter? Because it proves that the psychic movie 1977 wasn't just "trash" cinema. It was influential. The way Fulci edits the visions—quick, jagged cuts of a bloody eye, a limping man, a broken lamp—became a visual shorthand for how "psychic powers" look on screen. It’s a language we still use today in shows like Stranger Things or movies like Last Night in Soho.
The movie sits in this weird middle ground. It’s not quite a slasher, and it’s not quite a ghost story. It’s a "giallo." If you aren't familiar, giallo movies are basically Italian pulp thrillers. They usually involve a mysterious killer in black gloves, a lot of red herrings, and some very creative cinematography. But while most gialli focus on who the killer is, The Psychic focuses on when the murder happens. It’s a race against destiny. Can you change the future if you’ve already seen it? Fulci suggests that maybe, just maybe, your efforts to stop the vision are exactly what make the vision come true.
Technical Brilliance Behind the Gore
People forget that Fulci was a technical master. Long before he was spraying fake blood everywhere, he was obsessed with eyes. The "Fulci Eye" is a real thing in film studies. He loves extreme close-ups of the human eye because it's the gateway to the soul, or in this case, the gateway to the vision. In the psychic movie 1977, the camera lingers on Jennifer O'Neill’s eyes constantly. You see the pupils dilate. You see the terror.
The cinematography by Sergio Salvati is incredibly moody. Italy in the late 70s looks cold, grey, and ancient. It doesn't look like a postcard; it looks like a tomb. There’s a specific shot where the camera glides through an empty villa that feels more terrifying than any monster. It’s the "uncanny valley" of architecture. Everything looks normal, but you know there is a body behind the plaster.
The script was co-written by Dardano Sacchetti. This guy is a legend in Italian genre film. He understood that for a psychic thriller to work, the logic has to be airtight. You can't just have things happen "because magic." The clues are all there from the first ten minutes. If you pause the movie and look at the background of certain shots, you’ll see the objects from Virginia’s vision scattered around. It’s a brilliant "fair play" mystery.
Why 1977 Was a Weird Year for Horror
Context is everything. 1977 was the year Star Wars changed everything. In the horror world, Suspiria was the big hit. Dario Argento’s neon-soaked nightmare was the "it" movie. Fulci’s The Psychic is almost the opposite of Suspiria. Where Argento went for bright pinks and deep blues, Fulci went for browns, beiges, and blacks. It’s a much more grounded, somber film.
It’s also surprisingly feminist for its time. Virginia isn't just a victim. She’s the one driving the investigation. She’s the one who refuses to believe the easy answers. In a decade where "final girls" were just starting to become a trope, Virginia stands out as a sophisticated, adult protagonist who is fighting against both a killer and a society that thinks she’s "hysterical" because of her gift.
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Common Misconceptions About The Psychic
One thing people get wrong is thinking this is a horror movie in the traditional sense. It’s really more of a "supernatural noir." If you go in expecting The Exorcist, you’ll be disappointed. If you go in expecting Chinatown with a psychic lead, you’ll be thrilled.
Another myth is that it’s extremely violent. Compared to Fulci’s later work like The Beyond or City of the Living Dead, The Psychic is actually quite restrained. There is violence, sure—it is an Italian thriller after all—but it’s used for impact rather than spectacle. The final ten minutes are some of the most suspenseful in cinema history, and they don’t need a drop of blood to make your heart race. It’s all about the realization of what is about to happen.
How to Watch It Now
Finding a good copy used to be a nightmare. For years, you had to rely on grainy VHS tapes or bootlegs. Thankfully, boutique labels like Severin Films and Scorpion Releasing have put out beautiful 4K and Blu-ray restorations. Seeing it in high definition is a game-changer. You can finally see the textures of the wall, the sweat on the actors' faces, and the intricate details of that cursed musical watch.
If you’re a fan of:
- Don’t Look Now
- The Dead Zone
- Final Destination (especially the "premonition" aspect)
- The Invisible Guest
Then you absolutely need to watch the psychic movie 1977. It’s the DNA of so many modern thrillers.
Actionable Steps for the Aspiring Cinephile
If this sounds like your kind of movie, don't just watch it casually while scrolling on your phone. This is a movie that demands attention to detail.
- Seek out the original Italian audio. While the English dub isn't the worst I've heard, the original Italian performances feel much more natural and grounded.
- Pay attention to the music. The score by Fabio Frizzi, Franco Bixio, and Vince Tempera is iconic. Listen to how the main theme evolves throughout the film.
- Watch it as a double feature. Pair it with Mario Bava's Shock (also from 1977). Both films deal with psychic trauma and haunted houses in very different, yet complementary ways.
- Analyze the "Vision" sequence. After your first watch, go back and watch the opening vision again. Notice how every single frame in that sequence is a clue that gets paid off later. It’s a masterclass in visual storytelling.
The psychic movie 1977 remains a high-water mark for Lucio Fulci. It proves that he was more than just a gorehound; he was a director who understood the mechanics of fear, the weight of fate, and the terrifying possibility that our own minds might be our worst enemies. Put it on your watchlist. Turn off the lights. And pay attention to the chimes.