The House with Laughing Windows

[yoloswegmaster]

While typically famed for its lurid Technicolor hues and grand guignol murders, the Italian giallo thriller had a less bombastic side as well. Erring less towards exploitation than to art, these lesser-seen gems offer some of the greatest rewards for adventurous viewers. Among them, 1976's The House with Laughing Windows, directed and co-written by Pupi Avati (Zeder), rises up as the cream of the crop.

Art restorer Stefano (Lino Capolicchio, The Bloodstained Shadow) arrives at an isolated Italian village to repair a fresco depicting the agonizing martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. The original painter was a death artist - a madman so obsessed with mortality that, according to whispered rumors, he tortured his models in their final moments of life. When people begin to turn up dead, Stefano is forced to consider the possibility that the artist has returned to continue his brutal career - and that he is the primary target.

Often counted among the greatest gialli ever made, The House with Laughing Windows offers a uniquely eerie twist on the genre, culminating in an unforgettable ending that will remain with you long after the credits have rolled. Arrow Video is proud to present this landmark title in its North American 4K Ultra HD debut.

4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

4K restoration from the original camera negative, graded by Arrow Films
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in HDR10
Restored original lossless mono Italian soundtrack
Newly translated optional English subtitles
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

[Big Ben]

Not that it's an issue but it strikes me as very interesting that an English language version isn't included given that the film is obviously, well, Italian. Is there a reason for this in this specific instance? Regardless I've heard great things about this film for years and I guess it's time to finally watch it!

[nicolas]

Shameless have announced their UK edition, also with a new grade in HDR10 / Dolby Vision and theirs was approved by Pupi Avati.

- Interview with Director Pupi Avati
- Interview with star Francesca Marciano
- Interview with Producer, Antonio Avati
- Interview with star Lino Capolicchio
- Interview with Cesare Bastelli
- New English subtitles and new SDH
- New grading was exclusively made for this edition in ‘HDR’ & ‘Dolby Vision’ – REGION FREE
- New Exclusive Booklet written by Kim Newman
- Art Cards
- Poster

[tenia]

The restoration as provided by Le chat qui fume in France has a text panel stating the grading was approved by Cesare Bastelli, assistant director on the movie.
It's not surprising hands-on labels would regrade it, but it's kinda silly they would get Avati to approve a regrade when the original grading was most likely wrong AND did not get Avati.

[nicolas]

The restoration as provided by Le chat qui fume in France has a text panel stating the grading was approved by Cesare Bastelli, assistant director on the movie.
It's not surprising hands-on labels would regrade it, but it's kinda silly they would get Avati to approve a regrade when the original grading was most likely wrong AND did not get Avati.

When looking at his IMDB, he’s still quite the prolific director, having released two films in 2024 plus a premiere at the Venice Film Festival. I guess LCQF’s remastering happened to take place when he was working on those and so they didn’t want to wait for him.

[Stefan Andersson]

Comments on Arrow´s new subtitles and differences in color grading:
https://www.mondo-digital.com/houselaughing.html

The Ritrovata/LCF release is the most accurate becuse "it is a direct port of the 4K restoration that all of the money was spent on, had multiple teams of experts including people involved with the original film, etc. /.../The Shameless appears it will be 2nd most accurate, because it is much closer to the LCQF/Ritrovata than the Arrow is"
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... 71&page=20 - post 384

[tenia]

Just to say that I watched and reviewed the LCQF release, and it simply is ritrovata'd to death. There is 0 possibility to be any faithful to whatever the movie is supposed to look like kinda originally, and though I like JohnCarpenterFan's inputs in general, his recurring point about new restorations not being faithful in general, including when works are received effusively as carefully done, is sophistic when it comes to this. There is a difference in new masters bringing slight modifications because no exploitation print look like another so "what is faithful anyway ?" and a lab applying a one grade fits all over hundreds of unrelated movies.

I was all the more surprised about this LCQF release using the 4k restoration as-is, as their main person is quite aware about such issues, and has for instance publicly questioned works like those done by Eclair on several Mocky titles (like Litan).

[Finch]

I hadn't seen the film before and it's one of the most unsettling things I've seen. Argento has great set pieces in his films but nothing has disturbed and made me feel as uneasy as this film has. The only other Italian directors that came close were Bava with the closing segment of Black Sabbath and Pasolini with Salo, the latter of which I'll quite happily never watch again. I guessed one of the many twists about halfway through but the two major ones had my jaw on the floor. One of the most haunting freeze frames to end on, and the spookiest recording I've heard outside of the old record player the detective discovers in the second to last scene in Cure. I watched the film on back channels in standard definition (couldn't find anything in higher quality without English subs) and it still floored me. From what I can gather from BR.com, none of the three UHD releases is perfect. The French release is too yellow but the Arrow over-corrects and looks too bright and bland by comparison. The Shameless 4K is supposedly a happy middle ground between the two but their English subs still aren't impeccable (though again, supposedly still better than the subs on Four Flies). I might go for the standard of the Shameless when it gets announced.

[nicolas]

The Shameless 4K is supposedly a happy middle ground between the two but their English subs still aren't impeccable (though again, supposedly still better than the subs on Four Flies). I might go for the standard of the Shameless when it gets announced.

There’s only one error in the Shameless subs. They used “you’re” instead of “you”. LSP did the new grading and presumably the encode as well. I’ll be going for it and am glad that they seem to have gotten it right.

Here’s an image of the sub shared by dallywhitty:

[Finch]

Another member found Mark Costello's review and he addresses the subs:

A quick note about the English subtitles – they sit firmly at the bottom of the screen, even during the opening credits which are partially obscured by them. They read mostly well and don’t appear too bright or quick…however there were some grammatical errors noted: a sentence appeared to be missing several words (“I’ve had it for long”) and others have reported the use of “you’re” instead of the correct “you” (I hadn’t noticed these myself to be honest). Hardly a reason to not purchase this but for those that are particular susceptible to such things, it's worth noting, especially as the label has form in the past with inaccurate subtitling.

[Finch]

One thing I wanted to bring up and forgot to in my earlier post was Avati's use of silence. There are several scenes that other directors or studio bosses would have tried to make more "dramatically exciting" with "scary music" but the quiet and stillness here made it all the more unnerving. I would say that the pacing could have been a bit tighter but the last half hour or so is a masterpiece of suffocating tension.