THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS (4K UHD Review)
Pupi Avati’s The House with Laughing Windows occupies a distinctive position within the giallo canon, opting for an aesthetic of erosion and restraint rather than the genre’s more canonical baroque excesses. Set in a dilapidated rural village, the film’s visual palette, dominated by ochres, stagnant greens, and the granular textures of decaying architecture, functions as an extension of its thematic interest in cultural and corporeal decomposition. Pasquale Rachini’s cinematography frames these spaces with painterly precision, while Amedeo Tommasi’s sepulchral organ score saturates them with an almost liturgical dread. The fresco at the narrative’s center, a rendering of Saint Sebastian’s martyrdom, becomes a symbolic nexus: a visual artifact through which the film interrogates the porous boundary between artistic representation and embodied violence.
Film ★★☆☆☆
The House with Laughing Windows follows Stefano, a young art restorer summoned to a remote Italian village to rehabilitate a decaying church fresco attributed to Buono Legnani, a painter infamous for depicting his subjects in the throes of agony. As Stefano uncovers the artist’s disturbing methods and becomes enmeshed in the town’s network of evasions, disappearances, and whispered warnings, he is drawn into a mystery that blurs the boundaries between historical atrocity and present day menace. What begins as an ostensibly professional assignment gradually mutates into an inquiry into the village’s repressed past with an investigation that leads, inexorably, to grotesque revelations!
Although deeply indebted to giallo conventions (an investigative outsider, anonymous threats, a community structured around secrecy), the film aligns more closely with the rural paranoia of Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling and the ritualized insularity of The Wicker Man than with the more stylized urban setpieces of Argento or Bava. Avati appropriates genre grammar only to modulate it into something quieter, more folkloric, and ultimately more fatalistic. Yet this commitment to atmospheric accumulation results in a narrative rhythm that teeters on inertia. The film’s middle movements reiterate motifs from ambiguous warnings, to opaque villagers, to Stefano’s procedural inquiries, but without materially escalating tension. When the climactic revelation finally arrives, it is undeniably potent: a macabre, meticulously staged finale that secures the film’s cult status. Still, the dramatic asymmetry between the film’s glacial progression and its shockingly effective conclusion raises questions about whether the payoff justifies the prolonged deceleration that precedes it.
Avati’s screenplay, co-authored with his brother Antonio and emerging after his involvement with Pasolini’s Salò, reflects a broader thematic throughline that characterizes much of his subsequent work, including Zeder, The Hideout, and Mr. Devil. Across these films, Avati consistently interrogates the persistence of historical violence within contemporary spaces, frequently employing artworks, recordings, and architectural ruins as conduits through which repressed traumas reassert themselves. This preoccupation situates The House with Laughing Windows not merely as an idiosyncratic giallo but as a key articulation of Avati’s sustained interest in the mechanisms of cultural memory and the spectral afterlives of communal wrongdoing. While the film’s pacing undermines some of its narrative impact, its aesthetic rigor and thematic coherence ensure its continued relevance to discussions of both giallo’s formal elasticity and Avati’s evolving cinematic project.
Video ★★★☆☆
Encoding: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Clarity/Detail:
From Arrow Films:
The House with Laughing Windows / La casa dalle finestre che ridono is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with mono Italian audio.
The film is presented in 4K resolution in HDR10.
The original 35mm camera negative was scanned and restored in 4K 16-bit at L’Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna.
The film was colour graded at R3Store Studios, London.
All materials sourced for this new master were made available by Acek and SND.
Remastering was supervised by James Pearcey and James White, Arrow Films
Arrow Video’s 4K restoration of The House with Laughing Windows represents a significant technical upgrade and the film’s most faithful modern presentation. Sourced from a 4K/16-bit scan of the original 35mm camera negative, the transfer reveals a remarkable degree of fine detail, particularly in the film’s numerous exterior sequences, where Pasquale Rachini’s photography gains a clarity and stability absent from earlier SD editions. HDR grading enhances the naturalistic palette rather than imposing artificial vibrancy: blue skies, green foliage, and weathered architectural textures appear convincingly lifelike, while fabrics, facial features, and even the surface of the fresco exhibit nuanced definition.
Grain is preserved appropriately, resolving cleanly even in brighter environments.
Depth: The restoration also meaningfully improves the legibility of the film’s low-light interiors. What once appeared muddied or indistinct on DVD now reveals deliberate gradations of shadow, deepened contrast, and atmospheric depth.
Black Levels:. Rachini’s darker compositions (critical to the film’s slow-building unease) benefit from this clarity, allowing the interplay of light and texture to register with far greater precision. Moments where Stefano walks through the dark corridors show an amazing level of black levels, upping the film’s creep factor.
Color: Although the HDR pass is subtle, this restraint ultimately aligns with Avati’s naturalistic aesthetic, which favors damp, earth-toned realism over the genre’s better-known chromatic stylization. When the end becomes blood-soaked, it’s quite vivid; viewers won’t be disappointed.
Flesh Tones: I noticed some slightly flushed flesh tones occasionally and selectively desaturated sequences, most notably in the opening credits and certain attic scenes. However, these choices do remain consistent with the film’s subdued visual grammar. There were a small handful of moments where the flushed flesh tones really stood out, but besides that, they were consistently natural throughout.
Noise and Artifacts: Clean
Audio ★★★☆☆
Audio Format(s): Italian: LPCM Mono
Subtitles: English
Dynamics: Arrow retains the original Italian mono track, presented in uncompressed LPCM. While inherently limited by its single-channel format, the track is clean, stable, and surprisingly dynamic. Ambient rural soundscapes are rendered with clarity, and Amedeo Tommasi’s organ-driven score (arguably one of the film’s most defining elements) comes through with impressive body and presence. Effects remain sparse by design, but the mix preserves the film’s acoustic atmosphere with fidelity.
Height: N/A
Low Frequency Extension: You won’t hear any subwoofer action, but that’s to be expected.
Surround Sound Presentation: N/A
Dialogue: Dialogue is consistently intelligible.
Extras ★★★★☆
Brand new audio commentary by critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson
Brand new audio commentary by critics Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth
Painted Screams, a brand new feature-length documentary on the film directed by Federico Caddeo, featuring interviews with co-writer/director Pupi Avati, co-writer Antonio Avati, assistant director Cesare Bastelli, actors Lino Capolicchio, Fancesca Marciano, Giulio Pizzirani, and Pietro Brambilla, production designer Luciana Morosetti, assistant camera operation Toni Scaramuzza, sound mixer Enrico Blasi, and Emanuele Taglietti (son of assistant production designer Otello Taglietti)
La Casa e Sola, a brand new visual essay by critic Chris Alexander
The Art of Suffering, a brand new visual essay by critic Kat Ellinger
Italian theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain
Double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain
Illustrated perfect bound collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Matt Rogerson, Willow Maclay, Alexia Kannas, Anton Bitel, and Stefano Baschiera
Summary ★★★☆☆
This is a wonderful package for fans of this film. I’m lukewarm on it, but the booklet and special features are really phenomenal, giving an in-depth look at the making of the film as well as some brilliantly written essays. The transfer is solid, and the audio is about as good as it will ever be. If you haven’t seen it, I’d say watch it first.
