Synopsis
…Today I painted that shameless bitch as she snuffed it…
A young restorer is commissioned to save a fresco representing the suffering of St. Sebastiano, which was painted on the wall of a local church by a mysterious, long-dead artist.
The House with Laughing Windows
1976 ‘La casa dalle finestre che ridono’ Directed by Pupi Avati
Cast
Lino Capolicchio Francesca Marciano Gianni Cavina Giulio Pizzirani Bob Tonelli Vanna Busoni Pietro Brambilla Ferdinando Orlandi Andrea Matteuzzi Ines Ciaschetti Pina Borione Flavia Giorgi Arrigo Lucchini Carla Astolfi Luciano Bianchi Tonino Corazzari Libero Grandi Cesare Bastelli Gina Bonacquisti Pietro Bona Giovanni Brusadori Paolo Gramignano Zora Kerova Eugene Walter
Director
Producers
Writers
Story
Editor
Cinematography
Assistant Director
Camera Operator
Additional Photography
Production Design
Special Effects
Composer
Sound
Costume Design
Makeup
Hairstyling
Studio
Country
Language
Alternative Titles
The House of the Laughing Windows, Das Haus der lachenden Fenster, La maison aux fenêtres qui rient, Het Huis met de Lachende Vensters, Contrato de Sangre, La Maison aux fenêtres qui rient, Το Σπίτι με τα Γελαστά Παράθυρα, La casa de las ventanas que ríen, A nevető ablakos ház, Дом со смеющимися окнами, 笑窗之屋, A Casa das Janelas Sorridentes
Genres
Themes
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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Italy
26 Aug 1976
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Italy
Releases by Country
Italy
20 Aug 1976
- Theatrical
26 Aug 1976
- Theatrical Rome
Popular reviews
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Opting for the rural backdrop rather than cosmopolitan, The House with Laughing Windows lives deliciously within confines of the folk horror milieu, lacking the well documented motifs so commonly attributed to the giallo in favor of menacingly unstoppable atmosfear.
Establishing an eeriness from the get go with a disturbing opening (among the genre’s best) before throwing us into the fray with morbid paintings, deranged townsfolk and the local diabolical underbelly, the sinister looking (laughing) windows, and a seething/unforgettable final twist of pure bedlam. A full fledged genre masterpiece with great performances and tight direction that shouldn’t be slept on—but in some weird way I think The House with Laughing Windows enjoys its often left alone place within the genre, it’s eye catching…
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Spooktober IV: Morte all'italiana
The movie in which they promise windows that laugh, but you instead have them screeching.
A film in which the filthy, yellowish cinematography, which appears to some (Callie) to be vomit, really helps much of the terror become more effective. The mystery at hand didn’t engross me very much, but I really loved the little horror stuff we got with some good kills. There is very little blood and gore, as I was expecting, as it leans more into the sinister and psychological with one of the most WTF endings, like whoever told you they saw it coming is full of s**t. Capolicchio is a fantastic main character; he's someone you can readily root for, and…
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What a return to my newfound favorite genre. The House of the Laughing Windows is my favorite kind of giallo: a slow-burn psychological mindcreeper set in an isolated village that is real but also the manifestation of your mind. The definiton of that kind of giallo? It hooks its talons into your forehead and rips and rips until your mind itself comes apart. Delectable.
The patiently dripping terror is palpable in how the film goes about its plot of mystery. All the killings happen off-screen, but the killer is as real and human as the inhabitants of the village. This giallo is no police procedural at all; there is no police, only the village-dwellers who are all potentially crazy…
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This is one seriously dark and disturbing movie and I love it. I actually think this was the very first dvd I rented from Netflix when I originally signed up back in 2006 before streaming was really a thing.
A guy comes to a small village to restore a macabre fresco and gets wrapped up in the secrets behind the painting. Right from the beginning, you know you’re in for a hella dark time with that creepy ass voice talking about pain and suffering and somesuch. I’ve never seen a dubbed version of this and I think that’s probably a good thing because that voice would never be properly recreated.
There’s some beautiful scenery, spooky old houses, strange townsfolk, and…
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This extraordinary Giallo begins with a disturbing montage; torture bathed in sepia, overlaid with creeping piano and a rasping voiceover speaking about colours and purification. We then make a jarring switch to broad daylight where we are introduced a young art restorer and the fresco he has been hired to fix. The partly exposed painting depicting a suffering Saint with certain details hidden; teasing a hidden menace always bubbling beneath the surface. The House of the Laughing Windows is not typical for the genre. It's a real slow burn and there's no high body count or gory death scenes. What we do get is an intricately plotted mystery, augmented by an intensely oppressive atmosphere. Pupi Avati makes best use of…
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A Quiet Place in the Country. Creepy slow burn isolated town atmos really elevate this to one of the genres best offerings... and it needs to be seen more because House of Laughing Windows is an insane slice of rural giallo horror. The incredible opening is perfectly balanced with an gobsmacker of an ending reveal that always catches me off guard... and sandwiches in between is everything I look for in a deliberately paced descent into madness. A personal favorite that needs the Arrow or Severin treatment.
Wickedly Essential.
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Damn from that morbid opening sequence I just knew I was in for a brooding nightmare of dread. The guy being tortured while an ultra bleak melody portrays a hypnotic trance of pure madness. House of Laughing Windows? More like Torture Chamber of Crying Guillotines!
Stefano is a young artist who has traveled to a quaint Italian village to restore a painting. A painting rumored to be that of a notorious local maniac! The "snuff painter" was known to paint his models while torturing them so he could capture every moment of pain and suffering. Whoa! As Stefano dives deeper into his restoration he is hurled into a frightening new reality built around a deadly mystery!
Watching this felt like…
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What a well-constructed build up - we open with intensity and disturbing imagery, cool down with a quiet intro that still inserts a bit of mystery, then builds back up, spiking here and there as pieces of the story are revealed, until we hit the full-scale horrors as the killers are revealed in blood and laughter.
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If you thought you had seen many films of the genre Giallo and know everything about them as I do, you may not yet have realized that there is this film that few talks about when talking about this famous subgenre born in Italy and may even evade it. Pupi Avati enters for the first time in lands which were already known by great names like Dario Argento or Mario Bava, both stepped with force making great stories that are so iconic in the cinema of terror.
The story is, in general terms, is typical of the model that Giallo follows. I know that it is nothing that Avati has innovated in his time, but, nevertheless, there is something in…
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"I think being a psycho is contagious," an old man tells Stefano, and he means it pretty literally — his secluded island town is notorious for housing a serial killer who may have "caught" a bad case of "being a psycho" in Brazil, from which he returned with a "beastly savage religion" and ended up killing a few people around town with the help of his two sisters — but taken more figuratively, it's an apt metaphor for social psychology. It's not just being a psycho that's contagious, it's also being traumatized, and one thing this little island is certainly not suffering from is a lack of shared historical trauma.
Psycho serial killer aside, this island…
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Pupi Avati's 1976 giallo is a refreshing spin, mainly because it's legitimately terrifying. While very much a slow burn and low on scenes of violence, there's an intensity to it that really lingered with me.
Opening with a hypnotic and deeply disturbing credit sequence, the overwhelmingly dark images and tone then proceeded to cast the entire film in a thick layer of dread.
The story itself concerns a man who is hired to restore a painting in a small town along the Northern coast of Italy. He arrives and things are not quite as they seem, there's a dark mystery involving the artist, a friend who possibly was murdered, and an overall feeling like our protagonist is slowly descending into… -
There are two ways to succeed on this site (and I just mean accidentally, if you don't play the twitter game and don't play the just a bunch of dudes chilling and watching movies with maybe one chick who inexplicably likes this stuff game) like if you are a loner stupid enough to think they can still succeed, you can either really, really, love a movie, or really, really hate it. So, knowing these aren't for me, I'm setting myself up to write a lukewarm review, and people tend to feel lukewarm about those in return, I've noticed.
I've always reasoned that if I just knew WHY people found me repellent, I would be cool with it, really ever since…
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