Nostalgia Kinky

One of the finest films of 1976 has been granted an incredible release courtesy of Arrow Home Video. Available as a 4K UHD and Blu-ray release, this recent Arrow collection is as close to perfect as imaginable. It is hard to imagine a more definitive release of Pupi Avati’s haunting The House With The Laughing Windows (1976), which has never looked or sounded as good as it does here via Arrow’s new restoration from the original negative. Overflowing with extras, including a fantastic feature-length documentary, this is a very special release from Arrow dedicated to a most extraordinary film.

There’s nothing else like The House With The Laughing Windows. One of the great films ever made about art and artists, Avati’s film is amongst the most intense works of dread ever made. Chris Alexander notes during his new video essay for Arrow that the film has a genuine feeling of ‘evil’ about it. Avati indeed captures a level of darkness rarely felt in film, and he does so with very little violence or anything else that one typically associates with a standard horror film.

It is fitting that a film as nightmarish as The House With The Laughing Windows sprang from an unhappy time in Avatai’s career and life, as he’d been arrested on an obscenity charge for his previous film Bordella (1976). The struggles with Bordella sparked an inner artistic rage in Avati, who quickly planned out a follow-up designed to be made as quickly and cheaply as possible.

The House With The Laughing Windows is indeed a low-budget film but, man, it sure doesn’t look like one. Made with a small crew of mostly family and friends, The House With The Laughing Windows transcends its budgetary limitations at every turn. This is a shockingly beautiful film, a great art-film as much as a terrifying chiller. The fact that it was shot by an almost completely inexperienced cinematographer, Pasquale Rachini, is absolutely astounding.

Stylistically, The House With The Laughing Windows is close to perfect, and it remains a mystery just how Avati and his small crew delivered such a miraculously rich work, considering the many budgetary limitations and time constraints. For Avati himself, he directs the film with the skill of one of the greats, creating one of the most gripping and suffocating films of the seventies.

Considering the small size of the crew, the film’s rather large ensemble cast is surprising. Avati packs The House With Laughing Windows with one mysterious character after another, with an expertly chosen cast. The film’s clear star, the wonderful Lino Capolicchio, appears in nearly every scene, leading the film with a painfully soulful and contemplative performance as an art restorer who gets much more than he bargained for after accepting what seems like a simple mural restoration for a small, lonely Italian community. The veteran of some of the great films in cinema history, including De Sica’s great masterpiece The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970), Capolicchio is quietly devastating here, creating a character with so much more depth than your average Italian genre lead.

The film’s most dazzling supporting turn belongs to lovely Francesca Marciano, making just her second screen appearance here after her unforgettable debut in Lina Wertmüller’s Seven Beauties (1975). The talented Marciano only appeared in a handful of films, in this period, as writing was her true calling. Starting with a film she co-wrote and directed with one of my favorites Stefania Casini in 1983, Lontano da dove (somebody please hook me up with a copy of this!!!), Marciano began an impressive behind-the-scenes career that ultimately resulted in a coveted David di Donatello award for best screenplay about fifteen years after her appearance here. Marciano is the beating heart of The House With The Laughing Windows, giving a tragic performance nearly impossible to shake.

Aside from being such a tremendously made film, I’m not exactly sure what it is about The House With The Laughing Windows that makes it so damn powerful. Avati injects the film with some sort of strange indescribable dark magic. There’s a reason so many consider it amongst the great Italian horror films. A very good reason indeed.

I haven’t had the opportunity yet to spin the new 4K disc of House With The Laughing Windows, but Arrow’s Blu-ray version (taken from the same restoration) looks incredible. I can hardly believe this is the same film that I got on grey-market VHS so many decades ago. Arrow’s presentation is fantastic, and I can’t wait to watch the 4K as well.

Considering how important The House With The Laughing Windows is, it is great to see how respectfully it is treated here. Two critical commentaries as well as a duo of video essays are on hand, but the real prize is Painted Screams, an incredibly in-depth documentary about Avati’s film that is almost as long as the work itself.

Italian film historian Federico Caddeo directs the wonderful Painted Screams (2025), a fascinating 95-minute documentary about the making of Pupi Avati’s legendary The House With The Laughing Windows (1976). Included on the Blu-ray disc on Arrow’s wonderful recent 4K collection dedicated to Avati’s masterpiece, this is amongst the best feature-length looks at a film I’ve seen in a while.

Caddeo impressively gathers together almost all of the surviving key players from the cast and crew for his impressive Painted Screams. This impressive lineup includes Avati himself, stars Lino Capolicchio and Francesca Marciano, along with cowriter Antonio Avati. In total, well over half a dozen other of the film’s pivotal figures appear.

Stylistically, Painted Screams is a fairly straightforward talking-heads style documentary, but Caddeo overcomes this due to just how much first-hand information he uncovers and how damn interesting it all is. Caddeo tells the entire story, from early pre-production to The House With The Laughing Windows’ ultimate premiere. It’s hard to imagine a more exhaustive and thorough look at this special film and the talented artists who made it.

Highlights are numerous. I especially enjoyed hearing Marciano’s memories of this and her early film days before transitioning to an award winning screewriter. This is clearly a cast and crew who all admire, care for, and trust each other, and it is obvious that it all comes from a very genuine place.

Painted Screams is honestly a good enough film to warrant its own release, but there’s no arguing its perfect placement here on this Arrow release. This is an absolutely awesome look at The House With The Laughing Windows. I wish more classic films were granted this kind of in-depth look, told with such depth and clarity.

Arrow has done a stunning job with this new restoration and release for The House With The Laughing Windows. This is easily amongst the best releases in recent memory and I hope everyone will snag a copy of this beauty. The House With The Laughing Windows is a masterpiece and deserves to be seen by as many as possible.

-Jeremy Richey, April 2026-

Order The House With The Laughing Windows directly from Arrow or here in the States from MVD.