The Psychic (1977)
7/10
Pretty good and with an unusual ending.
20 December 2013
In the 1950s-70s, many American movie stars appeared in Italian-made movies. I assume that they employed these Americans in order to increase the drawing power of the movies--and in most cases, these folks were dubbed into Italian or whatever language where the film was being marketed. This explains why Jennifer O'Neill stars in this film.

The film begins with a poorly filmed suicide scene. It was a neat idea to show the face of the victim but it was clearly plastic! Oops. Other than this one scene, however, the rest of the film was well made. Anyway, the daughter of this now dead woman has psychic powers--as she SEES this as it happened even though she was no where near the scene of the death.

Years pass, the child has grown up and Virginia (O'Neill) still has psychic flashes. In this new case, she sees a dead body walled up inside her husband's home. She tells the police and indeed a body is found there. As for the police, they accept that she's psychic and use her other flashes to investigate this crime. However, late in the film the scenes she sees and tells the police would indicate that the crime involves a murder in the future! In other words, in the same space where they found a body, another will be placed--unless they can be stopped. What's next? Well, I won't say more because I don't want to ruin it for you--but the ending comes as quite a surprise--and I appreciate that.

Overall, this is a strong suspense/horror film whose only real weakness is the sloppy opening as well as too many sound effects used by the lead. In other words, when they dubbed her, they made O'Neill groan, moan and simper way too much. Apart from that, it's exciting and well worth your time.
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