Made in 1976 The House With Laughing Windows may sound like a silly title for a movie but believe me there is no humour in this beautiful looking horror movie that has become one of the most acclaimed Italian horror thrillers in history. While low on the gore front La Casa dalle finestre che ridono to use its proper title is at times so disturbing that it literally trounces on the entire American horror output for this sort of movie.

Starting as it means to go on the movie opens with a naked man hanging from a ceiling while knives are seen repeatedly launching into his face, to a camera lens sepia in its colour. While I assume the change to sepia was designed to cut down on the blood side, this trick actually makes the movie look far worse, and offers a pretty horrific opening, in fact possibly one of the most horrific openings of any movie. This little addition is not helped by the creepy voice of Bruno Legnani (Tonino Corazzari) recounting in an almost spellbinding way how he loves painting the colours of yellow, the yellow of his blood.

Into this mad world comes Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) an artist called to a small Island town in the middle of the country in which the church has a fresco of the slaughter of Saint Sebastian that has remained unfinished for many years. The fresco's original artist the aforementioned Legnani shrouded in mystery, is he alive, is he dead, and what on earth happened.

Having gone from one extreme to another the vicious stabbing at the start of the movie is followed up by Stefano's arrival to a beautifully romantic theme by composer Amedeo Tommasi, as his ferry transports he and several others including Francesca (Francesca Marciano) into this visually stunning isle. This stark contrast is one of many that viewers will encounter on their journey through this movie.

Romanticising about the movie is all well and good but it's time to get to the heart of the matter, the story is so full that the hour and forty minutes of storytelling are only just enough into this timeframe director/writer Pupi Avanti must fit a love story, a mystery about a woman confined to a bed, a mysterious tape recording, disappearances, a vicious and brutal murder, a religious prophecy, family secrets long since forgotten, a strange unwritten mystery that each and every one of the town's residents know about but will not reveal to outsiders, and of course a house with laughing windows.

I was really taken aback by this movie, something I had

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