THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS

Stefano, a young student at the Academy, is called to a small village in the province of Ferrara to restore a fresco by a famous local painter, Buono Legnani. During his stay, he discovers the strange events related to the life of this artist: Legnani, in fact, was known to people as the "painter of agonies", for his obsessive mania to portray, with the complicity of his two depraved sisters, men and women at the point of death, in an attempt to capture their extreme suffering. It is also rumored that he himself killed his models according to arcane rituals learned during a stay in Brazil with his two sisters. The young restorer, increasingly interested in the affair, seeks to discover if the rumors about the painter are true, but no one in the village seems to want to help him. His curiosity will push him towards a bad end... One of the cult movies par excellence of our genre cinema and one of the most genuinely terrifying films ever made. This is a small masterpiece, shot by Avati in a few weeks, based on a subject by the same director (in collaboration with his brother Antonio) and on a screenplay by Maurizio Costanzo and Gianni Cavina, as well as the Avati brothers, and it is the clear example of how, to make a good horror movie, more than special effects are needed an original story and mysterious settings. Avati perfectly succeeds in the difficult task of transforming the quietness of the sun-drenched Romagna countryside into an unsettling backdrop for terrible events; the director tells with surprising genius a very dark and scary fairy tale, drawing from the heritage of popular narrative and thus managing to scare just as those bad fairy tales told to children before going to bed. The fear that the film manages to convey is even more anguishing because it comes from the unseen, from emblematic and allusive images (the paralyzed old woman who sings an unsettling lullaby, the grotesque house with red mouths painted on the back), from barely whispered and almost indecipherable phrases (the recording of the voice of the mad painter). It is a great giallo-horror (the best in its genre along with "Profondo Rosso") with one of the most surprising and terrifying endings ever made. Absolutely not to be missed! To finish, a couple of curiosities: the excellent protagonist of the film, Lino Capolicchio, was initially chosen by Argento for the leading role in his iconic "Profondo Rosso" but then nothing came of it and so the good actor got the part for this cult of Avati, managing to obtain the success he deserved. The original title of the film was supposed to be "La Luce del Piano di Sopra" but then, before being released, the production decided to change it opting for the current (and even more original) "La Casa dalle Finestre che Ridono".