The House with Laughing Windows
The House with Laughing Windows is a 1976 film from Italy, directed by Pupi Avati, running 106 minutes. reelscum files it under giallo and folk horror.
- Year
- 1976 · 1970s films
- Country
- Italy
- Runtime
- 106 min
- Director
- Pupi Avati
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (33/100)
- Also known as
- The House of the Laughing Windows · The House with Laughing Windows
Defined in the glossary: Giallo, Folk horror
A rural giallo with no gloss and a deep, patient dread. Often voted the best one going.
Pupi Avati takes the giallo out of the boutique and into a rotting Po Valley village, and the result gets voted the best of them more often than almost anything with Argento's name on it. A young restorer is hired to uncover a fresco of a saint's martyrdom, painted by a local madman who worked from life, and the closer he gets to the plaster the more the village would prefer he stopped. There are no gloved kills or fashion shoots here, only provincial daylight, damp walls and the sense that everyone knows something. The dread is agricultural, slow and specific to its landscape. The ending is one of the most quietly horrible in the whole genre. Watch it for atmosphere, not for a body count.
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Written about
- The giallo, 1963 to 1976
A line of yellow paperbacks, a killer in black gloves, and Mario Bava building the American slasher a decade before Hollywood cashed the cheque.
Filed alongside
The Blood on Satan's Claw
A plough turns up a skull and a village falls apart. Coined the term.
The Case of the Bloody Iris
The Fenech giallo distilled to its purest form: models, murders, and no reason to solve any of it.
The Psychic
Fulci does a clockwork giallo. A woman's vision of a murder turns out to be her own future.
All the Colors of the Dark
Satanic paranoia in Swinging London. Edwige Fenech is excellent.
StageFright
A killer in a giant owl mask, a locked theatre, and Soavi announcing himself.
Who Saw Her Die?
A child is murdered in Venice. A grieving father hunts the killer through the fog.
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh
The Martino/Fenech formula, arriving fully formed. Cut and retitled Blade of the Ripper in the US.
Who Can Kill a Child?
Spanish, sun-bleached, upsetting. The opening newsreel is a hard sell.
The Black Belly of the Tarantula
The killer paralyses you first so you feel it. A first-rank giallo nobody name-checks.
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times
A family curse, a killer in a red cloak, and a legend that kills every hundred years.
Hatchet for the Honeymoon
A bridal-couture killer who narrates his own psychosis, and the best ghost gag Bava ever staged.
Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key
Best title in the genre. Poe adaptation with Edwige Fenech and a black cat.