The House with Laughing Windows

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.