The House with Laughing Windows

A picture restorer, Stefano (Lino Capolicchio), travels to a Po valley village to restore the disturbingly lifelike fresco of St Sebastian's martyrdom in the local church. Almost immediately he receives a warning/threat on the telephone telling him to leave. Then Stefano old friend, Antonio, who pulled some strings to get him the job, shows up and tries to tell him something about the strange history of the painter, Legnani, and his "house with the windows that laughed".

But before Antonio can recount the whole tale – that Legnani used to murder his models to achieve that extra degree of realism he could not achieve otherwise – he takes a suspiciously fatal dive out a window…

Clearly someone in town does not want Stefano interfering. But who? And why?

The theme of the mad artist isn't exactly a novel one within the horror genre (cf. A Bucket of Blood, Color Me Blood Red etc), while art objects have long been a favoured motif within the giallo, especially as practiced by Dario Argento (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Stendahl Syndrome etc). As such, The House with Laughing Windows can't lay claim to any originality awards – especially when one also considers certain (possibly coincidental – the Avati brothers assert that the film's script had lain there for a long time before finally being made) with Don't Look Now and The Wicker Man.

Fortunately, a lack of originality doesn't matter when you have the goods elsewhere.

The House with Laughing Windows is an intriguing, suspense-filled horror/mystery. While director Pupi Avati doesn't provide much in the way of Deep Red style set pieces, he does better than most of his countrymen – Argento included – in maintaining a consistent atmosphere throughout, deploying the Fellini-esque grotesques in his cast – a dwarf, a degenerate altar boy etc – to particularly good effect and using Amedeo Tommasi's simple, understated, musical themes to their fullest.

The only discernible flaws are an inability to fully live up to the promise of a particularly arresting title sequence – an abstract torture/murder sequence that resembles a cross between Salo and Hermann Nitsch – and a couple of weak romantic subplots, the first going nowhere and the second failing to completely convince.

This Region One DVD from Image Entertainment, presented as part of their Euroshock Collection, represents the first time The House with Laughing Windows has been released in the USA (though an Italian Region Two disc with English subtitles has been available for some time).

The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is enhanced for 16:9 televisions. The original negative has been used as a source and for the most part it looks great, with the subtle shades and details in the St Sebastian mural coming through particularly well.

Rather than dubbing the film, Image have opted to go with optional subtitles and the Italian soundtracks, presenting a DTS mix, the restored version's 5.1 and the original's mono mixes.

Confusingly the retrospective documentary, culled from Italian television, is billed as "Restoration featurette". Whether this is a jokey reference on Image's part or a mistake – a featurette detailing the restoration work is included on the Italian disc – I don't know. As it is, there's nothing on the business of film preservation/restoration within the 16 minutes, but plenty of background and trivia on the film's production from the select members of the cast and crew. Particularly impressive is the fact that the film-makers managed to accomplish what they did with a limited budget and a small crew, each of the dozen or so members performing multiple roles.

Other extras are a gallery of original lobby cards, the theatrical trailer, and filmographies for Pupi Avati and Lino Lino Capolicchio.

Overall, another worthwhile Euro-horror DVD of a film whose measured approach makes for a nice contrast.