The Psychic (1977)

Wow! The Psychic is where Fulci shows he can be a truly good director. Not an odd but brilliant director with niche appeal to people like us, but a really good director. The Psychic is the most competent Fulci film I've ever seen. The sometimes goofy zooms are here put to perfectly reasonable narrative use, the close-ups on eyes are meaningful, the music--which I usually loathe in Fulci films--is pitch perfect, enhancing the mood but never telling the viewer what to feel. This is Fulci's Deep Red.

If you've never read anything about this film, I must ask you not to read anything other than my review, because most plot summaries and reviews give away a major shocking plot point. Here's a spoiler free look at the plot: a woman who has had premonitions about deaths in her childhood suddenly gets a jarringly vivid vision of a murder in her adulthood. Coincidental events begin corresponding to her vision until she discovers a body. When her husband is held for the murder, she and a parapsychologist friend work together to solve the murder her vision lead her to discover in the first place.

The pace with which the film moves is downright masterful, slowly meting out the information to you as your heroine delves deeper and deeper. She is plucky, likable, and sympathetic, like David Hemmings and Daria Nicolodi from Deep Red combined. The mood never falters for a moment. The moments of suspense left me nearly breathless.

The Psychic is an almost archetypal example of giallo filmmaking: there's a blackgloved killer and a fantastically complicated plot. What is odd, however, is the very few murders. There is really only one murder in the film's present and it occurs off-screen. I've never seen Fulci at this level of restraint, but it seems to have worked: he's channeled his energy into mood with great success.

Simply one of the best gialli I've ever seen.