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| Courtesy of Euro International Films |
Uncredited co-author to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo and
among the best and most wholly original Italian horror directors, Pupi Avati
though considered a master remains curiously unknown outside of dedicated
giallo circles. Though prolific, the
film that got people’s attention initially could well be the scariest and most
disturbing of the genre in living memory.
While bearing among the more peculiar giallo title cards with The
House with Laughing Windows, from top to bottom this film starts out
screaming and ends in deranged cackling literally and figuratively. Among the least seen and more ferocious
examples of giallo which like Footprints on the Moon turns the tropes on
their head and reinvents the genre to some degree, The House with Laughing
Windows wastes no time in riling the viewer up before finally leaving them
broken and deeply shaken.
While on the job he begins dating local schoolteacher
Francesca (Francesca Marciano) who soon joins forces with Stefano as he grows
increasingly suspicious of the task at hand, especially when townsfolk inform
Stefano of Legnani’s unscrupulous if not downright murderous and cruel
practices. As clues and people begin
disappearing without explanation, Stefano grows further intrigued by what the
townspeople are trying to cover up and the truth behind Leganini’s complicated
legacy.
Taking full advantage of the Valli di Comacchio locations
awash with stark scenic beauty and a sense of barren isolation shot beautifully
by Pasquale Rachini, The House with Laughing Windows is a gorgeous
looking slow burn that eventually ratchets up the tension towards a full-blown
freak out sure to leave even the most hardened giallo fans jittering.
Spawning from a story director Avati heard
involving the exhuming of a priest and co-written by Antonio Avati on the heels of the box office
failure of his film House of Pleasure for Women, the film manages to
evoke fear and disorientation from the viewer without resorting to heavy
lighting and kaleidoscopic colors often utilized by Mario Bava or Dario Argento. Instead, much of the film’s strength comes
from the editing and juxtapositions which create their own degrees of tension
in between elongated extended takes that deliberately run on until your heart
is anxiously pounding.
Led by David di Donatello award winning actor Lino
Capolicchio who is tasked with making the archetypical giallo hero at once
stoic, determined, streetwise and perhaps at the end of it a little crazy. An unlikely protagonist for the giallo
thriller whom we’re fully with but could well be an unreliable narrator himself,
The House with Laughing Windows posits him with his head just barely
above water as dark and mysterious forces gradually close in on him. Equally strong is Francesca Marciano as the
love interest who gets caught up in the cat-and-mouse game being deployed
against Capolicchio. The most unlikely
actor in the piece is American screenwriter Eugene Walter who winds up
harboring one of the biggest shocks the giallo picture has ever depicted
onscreen.
A demon drop of an Italian thriller that keeps turning the
screws of anxiety and fear until you feel confused and petrified by the time
the end credits roll, The House with Laughing Windows remains curiously
unavailable in the United States outside of importing the British DVD. That’s a tragedy because as someone who
considers himself mostly experienced with the giallo film, this one yanked the
rug out from under me in ways not even the most jaded edgy horror fans will
see coming.
The title itself and its
poster image of a Rocky Horror Picture Show set of lips and teeth in a
wicked cackle evoke everything from terror of the supernatural, the unknown or
perhaps the occult. Startlingly gory,
violent, grotesque and genuinely shocking, The House with Laughing Windows is
a real nightmare of a movie which could well be the pinnacle of the subgenre.
--Andrew Kotwicki
