'Seven notes in black') is a 1977 Italian giallo film directed by Lucio Fulci and co-written by him with Roberto Gianviti and Dardano Sacchetti.

The film involves a woman who begins experiencing psychic visions that lead her to discover a murder; her husband is charged with the killing.

In 1959, a mother in Dover kills herself by leaping from a cliff; at the same time, her daughter, Virginia, living in Florence, witnesses the death in a vision.

Eighteen years later, an adult Virginia (Jennifer O'Neill) has married a rich Italian businessman Francesco Ducci (Gianni Garko).

After Francesco leaves on a business trip, Virginia experiences new visions consisting of seemingly unrelated people and objects, including a murdered old woman.

Virginia is determined to exonerate her husband, and contacts her friend Luca Fattori (Marc Porel), a researcher of psychic phenomena.

Grabbing a vital letter featured on a coffee table in her vision, Virginia escapes down the road to a neighboring church that is undergoing repairs.

According to director Lucio Fulci, Sette note in nero gestated over several years in development hell because producer Luigi De Laurentiis was unsure about what type of film could be made out of it.

[4] Ernesto Gastaldi stated that he had written a twelve-page outline of the film with director/producer Alberto Pugliese, titled Pentagramma in nero (lit.

[1] Film critic and historian Roberto Curti has noted that there exists a script kept at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia library, titled Incubus (Pentagramma in nero), which is credited to Gastaldi, Sergio Corbucci and Mahnamen Velasco and is dated March 1972, but states that this was, in fact, an early title for La morte accarezza a mezzanotte (1972); however, Curti notes that both La morte accarezza a mezzanotte and Sette note in nero share near-identical premises of women having premonitions of murder.

[6] Fulci and Gianviti had been put under contract by De Laurentiis and his son Aurelio based on the success of their earlier gialli; given creative freedom to conceive a project in the same genre, they chose to adapt writer (later a film critic and distributor) Vieri Razzini's 1972 mystery novel Terapia mortale.

[4][10] Sacchetti noted that Fulci and Gianviti had little to show for half a year's work on the project, largely because the former misinterpreted the novel's portrayal of parapsychology as a type of magic instead of psychoanalysis.

Fulci impulsively devised the title Sette note in nero after Sacchetti informed him that a carillon would serve as a key plot device in the story.

[16] Aside from sharing a theme of psychic powers and the character of Luca Fattori being a parapsychologist who harbors romantic feelings for the married Virginia, the resulting film bares little resemblance to Razzini's novel.

[9] Curti notes that Sette note in nero features several scenes and themes influenced by Fulci's earlier films, including the potentially unjust imprisonment of a man for the murder of his wife (One on Top of the Other), precognition (A Lizard in a Woman's Skin) and a character who falls to their death on a cliffside (Don't Torture a Duckling); other possible influences on the narrative include the novel Night has a Thousand Eyes by Cornell Woolrich (whose works were possible influences on One on Top of the Other and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin) and the films Don't Look Now and Death Rite.

"[18] Sette note in nero is the fourth giallo film to have been helmed by Fulci, following One on Top of the Other, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin and Don't Torture a Duckling.

Fulci's gialli have been cited as being "a far cry from his later excessive gross-out horrors", showing that the director was able to "put his finger on the free sexuality that permeated the culture at the time and the repercussions that came along with it".

[4] Paranormal themes were also explored in adult comics and television miniseries such as Il segno del comando and ESP based on Dutch psychic Gerard Croiset.

Composer Fabio Frizzi also contributed to Paura nella città dei morti viventi, ...E tu vivrai nel terrore!

[29] In the United Kingdom, a bilingual Blu-ray distributed by Shameless Screen Entertainment was released on August 9, 2021, featuring a revised subtitle translation for the Italian track, interviews with Fulci's daughter Antonella, Sacchetti and Frizzi, and a demonstration of the film's 2K restoration process.

[30] DVD Talk's Stuart Galbraith gave Sette note in nero three-and-a-half stars out of five, calling it "a very effective little thriller, smartly directed and engrossing".

Galbraith felt that the film "offers few surprises" but moves with "palpable suspense", and added that the final scenes are "genuinely harrowing".

Arnold was critical of the post-dubbed nature of the sound, and of Fulci's "excesses of enthusiasm" in direction, but felt that this was more enjoyable than the "laborious tease" of the contemporary film Halloween.

[33] Bloody Disgusting's Chris Eggertsen included the film as number seven in a countdown of the "Top Ten Underrated Horror Gems", citing its "excellent cinematography [and] deft use of color", though criticising its "poor use of dubbing".

[35] Italian film critic Riccardo Strada has described Sette note in nero as "effectively sinister and disturbing", finding it full of "healthy unease".

[nb 1][36] Sometime in the 1990s, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino considered remaking Sette note in nero, with Jackie Brown star Bridget Fonda in the role of Virginia.