Before I review the actual film, allow me to say that Image did an excellent job of restoring "The House With Laughing Windows" or else they found an excellent print. For having been originally released in 1976, the audio and video are superb. Speaking of audio, it is presented only in Italian with English subtitles. Perhaps it was never dubbed in English, having never been released in America. (However, one would think that it would have been dubbed in English for release in Britain.) The film, as well as the trailer, is presented in widescreen with its original theatrical aspect of 1.85:1. The trailer does not have English subtitles. Other special features include an interesting documentary on the making of the film (which now has a cult following), a lobby card gallery, and filmographies of the director and lead actor.

Directed by Pupi Avati (who co-wrote the screenplay for Lamberto Bava's "Macabre," a.k.a., "Macabro"), "The House with Laughing Windows" is one of the most bizarre Italian gialli I have ever seen. It has satanic elements and ranks up there with Aldo Lado's "Short Night of the Glass Dolls" and Sergio Martino's "All the Colors of the Dark," both of which are equally strange; however, "The House with Laughing Windows" is superior.

Stefano (Lino Capolicchio of Antonio Bido's "The Blood Stained Shadow") is hired to restore a church fresco which depicts the brutal stabbing death of St. Sebastain. He soon learns that the inhabitants of this small island town are a strange lot. The friend who recommended him for the job falls from Stefano's hotel room window. Though Stefano insists it was murder, the police rule it a suicide. Stefano begins investigating the fresco's dead painter Legnani who was known as the Painter of Agony. His perverse artwork depicted people in pain and suffering and it was rumored that he painted from real life. As Stefano unravels the secrets of the painting, more of his friends and associates begin to die.

"The House with Laughing Windows" is a creepy, atmospheric gothic horror/giallo. There are crumbling buildings, swamps, and canals enshrouded in fog; demented characters; disappearing corpses; and a secret burial site. Like many Italian gialli, the ending is strange, twisted, and perverse; it is rather shocking and unexpected. Stefano reminds me of Rosemary Woodhouse in "Rosemary's Baby." He too learns that you can't trust those around you.

"The House with Laughing Windows" is highly recommended for those who enjoy Italian gialli or European horror. I didn't find anything laughable about it. It would have been more appropriately titled "The House With Screaming Windows." Its victims certainly screamed a lot before dying.

If you like Italian gialli, I recommend "Deep Red," "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage," "Tenebre," "The Red Queen Kills Seven Times," "A Lizard in a Woman's Skin," "Murder Walks on High Heels," "Torso," "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh," "What Have You Done to Solange?" and "Blood and Black Lace." I'm addicted to Italian gialli. I've seen over sixty.

This is an original Italian piece. The story develops in a giallo format, but ends in a more gothic style. By the way, the end is a bit disappointing though. The movie is nicely shot on some Italian coutry location, the wideangle use of the camera is very well achieved. The digital transfer is very good, with vivid colors and a nice defintion. It comes with its original Italian sound and English subtitles. Overall, and considering the its price, an interesting title that mixes a giallo style story with some gothic touches, including the ending. Note, however, that this is not for those expecting lots of nudity and blood.

This movie is a great movie.
the acting is great and the story is well done.
I won't go into details as there are alot of other reviews that do that.
In fact those reviews convinced me to buy this as I knew it was more of a
moody horror movie than a standard giallo. It's both for sure and this movie really excells at creating a realistic and gothic feeling of doom. The town is fading away , the people are complacent and they have allowed a great evil to pollute their lives for decades. Like the people who live in nieghorhoods with trash laying all around the stink of moral rot is prevelant. The music too sets the stage and is a great part of why the mood is so oppressive, this movie is for those who want a thinking person's horror movie or giallo that doesn't feature close up gory killings and a super fast pace that ruins so many modern movies. They have there place but they can't feature the type of intense story driven horror that is apparent here. The print is fantastic , whenever I buy a image released dvd flick I always hope they did a good job with the print and too often it looks like crap; but this time they did it right. This is remastered and brilliant. This is what they need to do with every movie from now on. If you like somber deep mysteries that give you a payoff at the end of the movie and don't expect a happy ending like the ones that are frequently tacked on to hollywood movies when they shouldn't be there, then you will enjoy this gothic cult classic.
And many film critics since 1976 have given this movie high marks not just we horror fans who have our own system of rating the genre.

Antonio, recently reacquainted with his friend Stefano who has come to renovate a fresco in the local church depicting the Martyrdom of St Sebastian, has discovered something he shouldn't. Something is rotten in the Italian backwater, but before he can divulge his suspicions he finds himself on the wrong side of a top floor window and plummets to his death while a shadow lurks behind the curtains. So far, so giallo. The gruesome work of art is apparently key to uncovering some secret harboured by the town's residents, so the bulk of the film is then devoted to delving into the bloody back-story of the deceased Artist and his two insane sisters. The main problem here is that the film finds the central mystery much more mysterious than it actually is, and doesn't seem to realise it's given most of the details away. As the Painter's story unfolds - murky as it is - the important stuff (that the gruesome acts depicted in the artist's work might be real) is either implied by the promotional blurb, the opening credits sequence or already anticipated by our over-active imaginations.

What the film sorely needs in the absence of any real action is some clarification as to what it is we're actually supposed to be intrigued by while we wait for the body count to rise. There is a throwaway line later in the film which goes a long way to informing the story as a whole, and cements in our minds the very real danger at hand, but it comes a bit late in the day. Used earlier it would have given Stefano's amateur sleuthing some much needed impetus (Antonio's is too mundane and isolated a death and seems forgotten almost immediately). What lies at the heart of the film then, once the back-story has been told (and after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing) is Stefano's failure to deduce the identity of the sisters (in particular the second sister) and the consequences therein. So everything depends on the final reveal. These are obviously characters we've already met - that's how these things work - but a real rapport needed to be established between Stefano and the peripheral players to give the nature of the revelation (which has been sketchily sign-posted) a much greater emotional punch when it comes. As a result the effect is diluted. Ultimately the biggest mystery is why the town is keeping its secrets in the first place.

On the plus side, coupled with the brooding atmospherics, it is lovely to look at. The camera work isn't overly elaborate but understated works in the film's favour. There are some nice shots - one in particular where Stefano walks round the side of a house with his back to it, so we discover, a moment before he does, that the title isn't simply a metaphor. A palette of greys and smoky blues blends with the thin winter light, with sparing splashes of crimson and orange ochre (emulating the look of Hitchcock's Frenzy). The artist's monologue which accompanies a retrospective sepia-tinged slaughter during the opening credits and used again later on is effectively lurid (you'll need a shower afterwards, followed by dinner and flowers) and the full extent of one haunted local's involvement with the mysterious trio some thirty-odd years earlier lends the film some much needed emotional resonance. Most of all Avati deserves credit for the St Sebastian reference. It seems a pretty innocuous stylistic choice, but there is a significance here which, though not essential, provides one of the true, subtle revelations of the entire film. Provided you put two and two together and know your saints.

The House with Laughing Windows was for so long the 'lost giallo' and consequently it seems a bit of giallo envy has bolstered its reputation as a forgotten masterpiece. In terms of pure filmmaking that's short of the mark. There are too many uneven moments. Characters disappear ominously, then reappear without acknowledgement. Things go bump in the night which we discover second hand rather than getting to witness, and there's a curious did they/didn't they? (do it) tryst between Stefano and the town's departing school teacher (if they did he apparently likes to keep not only his socks on but his entire dapper three-piece). That isn't to say it's a total bomb by any means either. It depends how invested you find yourself in the Painter's story, and to some extent how prepared you are to suspend disbelief. If you approach with expectations suitably tempered it'll probably do the business. Just sit back and soak up the quietly unsettling atmosphere without thinking too much, but be warned, a great time is not assured.

***

This is an above average Italian murder mystery that eschews all the usual giallo conventions (black gloved killers, over-use of subjective camera perspectives, and style over substance) in favour of an intricate, well constructed and most importantly logically cohesive narrative; simply put the film makes sense. Much of the pleasure from giallo is derived from this dream logic, but director Pupi Avati avoids potential boredom and failure, by creating a polarisation between city and country. One of the messages of the film, of which there are many, is to be weary and very cautious when in a rural, provincial part of Italy. Such binaries were not uncommon in the 1970's in many cultures, one only has too look to "Deliverance". However what makes Avati's vision more disturbing is the uncompromising assault on both art and religion. Art is provided for the benefit of culture, yet here it is the harbinger of sadistic torture, the institution of religion is concomitant to the sadism rendered through the process of artistic endeavour, they are bedfellows feeding off one another in this backwater setting. I'm fairly certain there is also an allegorical level to this film, both in the city/country dichotomy, but also in the art/religion dichotomy and its associations with brutality. This film is that rare thing, an Italian genre film with depth and intelligence.