The House with Laughing Windows

Italian “giallo” brilliantly directed by Pupi Avati, who, taking inspiration from a peculiar event that occurred during his childhood (a woman’s remains were discovered inside a priest’s tomb), crafts a horror film marked by fine expressive originality in a period otherwise suffocated by Dario Argento’s stylistic touches.

In fact, the film represents the Po Valley horror manifesto, a sort of Avati brothers’ specialty – Antonio Avati fills a dual role as writer and producer -, and codifies its main features:

1. The importance conferred on the sleepy, sun-drenched Emilia-Romagna countryside, whose apparent tranquility hides unspeakable horrors;
2. The local residents’ ambiguous behavior and tight-lipped code of silence (shades of Lovecraft);
3. The progressive descent to hell that consumes the outsider protagonist, guilty of getting involved in things that don’t involve him.

The result is that in “The House with Laughing Windows” the ordinary is menacing, the heat of the sunny summer days provokes goosebumps, and silence conveys paralyzing terror.