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by Spencer Hawken

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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 delayed watching for many years; I could literally kick myself for waiting so long to enjoy this thing of great beauty and of great horror. The Italian horror classics such as Suspiria, Deep Red, Who Saw Her Die? All have these phenomenal stories, but The House With Laughing Windows is in a different ballpark to even those, I was captivated by the movie which seems to stand alone in this genre.

What I find most captivating about the movie are the many secrets hidden right under your nose from the offset, one of the most mortifying secrets so abundantly obvious that not only do you not see it, when you clearly do see it your left with your mouth wide open unable to properly take on what you have seen.

The movie is filled with bizarre characters the creepy Lidio (Pietro Brambilla) who you realise is wrong from the movies offset seems to get more and more disturbing as the movie progresses, working as a sort of altar boy in the church he seems to be more in league with satan than anything on gods world, placing unspecified animals in coffins to devour the dead rather than letting them simply rot in the ground. Coppola (Gianni Cavina) is the town drunk who knows all the answers but nobody will talk to him because of his pretty much drunken state, although as an outsider watching he seems perfectly sober to me most of the time. Mayor Solmi (Bob Tonelli) plays a striking resemblance to Fantasy Islands Tattoo (Herve Villachez), dressed in his white suit walking mysteriously round the town carrying a cane he clearly does not need. And then there is the poor woman bed ridden in a house nobody visits, a woman who endures the movie under the title Paraplegic Woman (Pina Borione), and this kindly woman seems straggly ostracised by the town.

When you first see Stefano he does not come across as your normal movie hero, seemingly distant, his attitude is rather off the cuff, as are his morals hoping into bed with the soon to depart school mistress who disappears rather quickly in the movie. Bearded and a bit shifty looking (not saying everyone with a beard looks shifty) he soon endears himself to the audience as he woes the newly arrived school mistress Francesca who looks like she should still be in school herself.

One of the big charms of the movie is the uncertainty with when the movie is set, it has a very 1950's feel about it that leads you to believe that could be the movies setting, however due to the powers that be in Italy little changed in the country between the 1950's and the 1980's, then suddenly dramatic change as the country ran to catch up with most of the rest of Europe. I tried hard to guess when the movie was set paying close attention to dates given, and various electrical objects lying around, but by the end I found I had moved no further forward in my guessing.

The story is magnificently weaved with moments of pure genius, the story of the fresco for example, one of the ugliest things you might ever see on a church wall certainly gives a few moments of shock. While various red herrings turn out to deliver nothing, but have you guessing to the very end, for me there is nothing better than a red herring (false storyline for those unfamiliar with the term) that has the essence of leading somewhere but takes you nowhere, and this is what the movies all about defying your every expectation.

For DVD the movie has been marvellously restored, it had been described prior to the restoration as being threadbare, though to look at the movie you would not even consider this a possibility it's so well restored it looks like the filming was freshly finished, but developed into a serious looking period drama.

The once used English soundtrack has at the time of writing been long lost, and delivered in its native Italian tongue, with English subtitles. The subtitles provide some well needed light relief as the movie progresses with Francesca at one point describing the ambiance as the ambulance, and the local drunk being described as the local drink. The Italian soundtrack is delivered in 5.1 stereo however so sounds amazing.

One more word on the movies score, and that is how un-contrasting it is with the rest of the movie, sounding more like something from a romantic drama than a horror movie of this nature it's a really false heads up to the sort of horror the movie ultimately delivers, and this falseness carries on until the movies final moments.

The DVD's

In the UK the movie is available on the Metrodome label and features no special features.

In the US the DVD is released on the Euroshock label and features the original Italian theatrical trailer, a gallery of original lobby cards used to promote the movie when released in the states back in 1978, a behind the scenes documentary that really does not deliver much behind the scenes information in fact it's a rather poor collection of soundbites, film clips, and talking heads.

The best release is the Italian 20th Century Fox release under the La Casa dalle finestre che ridono title which features a documentary about the extensive restoration (sadly in Italian but you can figure it out). Also on the disc is an again Italian speaking interview with both Pupi and Antonio Avanti, as well as a series of clips and other interviewees. The print of the Italian disc is fantastic, and much clearer than the UK and US discs.

The House With Laughing Windows has shot its way into my favourite Italian movies, and having now seen a few hundred this is an incredibly high accolade because I'll seldom regard anything as a favourite. If you want to see how to make a really atmospheric horror, then look this way; or better still hop onto Ebay or your DVD rental company now.

Learn more about this author, Spencer Hawken.

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