Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

OK, maybe my title is a little ambitious, but my intention is to give you as many of the goods on this here film as possible. If I can't win a Most Helpful from an Advisor in the Movies category, maybe my write-up will at least earn me a date with your adolescent daughter. You know, the thirteen year old who dresses like a hoochie mama.

If you read my recent review of "Suspiria", you probably already know that I'm a fan of the giallo genre. Giallos are mostly Italian-made films that came out in the 1970's and were a huge influence on the American slasher movie trend that started with "Halloween". In fact, the creators of "Friday The 13th" cited one giallo in particular ("Twitch Of The Death Nerve", aka "Bay Of Blood") as their main inspiration. Of course, the real godfather of the giallo would have to be that soft-spoken master of murder and mayhem known as Walt Disney, with Alfred Hitchcock taking the silver medal.

Many people find giallos distasteful and idiotic, and even I, a fairly rabid fan, cannot make excuses for many of the genre's shortcomings. Some of the films are just plain awful, and many tend to be overly derivative of ones that came out previously. Even the three generally accepted giallo masters (Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Mario Bava) relied heavily on sadistic (sometimes bordering on misogynistic) violence, incomprehensible plots, and grotesqueries that frequently complicate the already perplexing storylines. Still, all these faults aside, I find the giallo to be immensely more entertaining than the run-of-the-mill Yankee hack-'em-up.

As much as I love the works of Argento, my favorite giallo would have to be "La Casa Dalle Finestre Che Ridono" ("The House With Laughing Windows" or, as it shall henceforth be referred to, "House". Please do not mistake it with that campy 80's horror flick). It came out in 1976, which sandwiches it between Argento's two best-known creations, "Deep Red" and "Suspiria". "House" has some similarities to the former, but in terms of menacing atmosphere, it is by far the superior film.

"House" was directed by Pupi Avati, a man about whom I know very little. He worked with both Pasolini (on the notoriously disgusting "Salo: The 120 Days Of Sodom") and Lamberto Bava (on "Macabre"), but I haven't really felt the urge to check out his other films. A quick glance at his filmography produces few titles with which I'm familiar, but I know the man is still active in the capacity of screenwriter/director.

The "House" DVD features the obligatory documentary, and it's actually interesting (I sometimes find these DVD extras unnecessary). Avati discusses the limited budget he had to work with (which resulted in crew members having to serve several different functions) and the challenges involved with filming. The cast and crew even had to contend with a serious earthquake that rattled Italy at the time.

The only actor of any note was Lino Capolicchio, who plays the lead character, a painter named Stefano. The rest of the cast members, to the best of my knowledge, were all very minor players who have only appeared in Italian films. Capolicchio is hardly a household name himself, though I have seen him in at least two other films (another giallo called "Solamente Nero" and the 1981 war epic "Lion Of The Desert"). Don't expect to see Eastwood, Nicholson, or Streep come floating into view.

THE PLOT- FOR THE "I HATE SPOILERS" CROWD

Here's a brief synopsis of the plot for those of you who'd rather not have me ruin the surprise. For those of you who could give a hoot, scroll on down below.

"House", after the opening scenes of a man being stabbed to death, deals with the arrival of Stefano to a remote Italian village. The purpose of his journey is to restore a badly-faded fresco on an interior wall of a local church, and as he digs into the village's past, the bodies start to pile up. Every giallo features its share of eccentric and possibly insane characters, and the ones we encounter in "House" include a retarded pervert, an old bed-ridden woman confined to an upstairs room of a creepy mansion, a midget mayor, the legacy of a (literally) tortured artist, and two school teachers, one quite slutty and the other less so.

The real strength of the movie is a building sense of mystery and terror that is hardly resolved by the twisted ending. Stefano flits from the church to the village to the scary mansion to an even scarier house in an attempt to find out about the creator of the fresco. Of course, knowledge comes with a price in giallos, and the path to enlightenment quickly gets littered with the bodies of those who moved too slow.

Now, for a more detailed discussion. Read no further unless you want to know how the story ends.

THE PLOT- THOROUGHLY ANALYZED AND RELATED IN PAINFULLY PLENTIFUL DETAIL

When the first scenes of a movie include a screaming man being stabbed to death as he's strung by his wrists from the ceiling, one has officially entered the "Giallo Zone". Kick in some disturbing, breathy rambling about death and colors, and you've got yourself a hell of an introduction.

So here's what's up. Stefano is on his way to some out-of-the-way Italian village, a place that is seemingly surrounded by salt water marshes or something. A very desolate place that has to be reached by ferry, at any rate. On board the same ferry is a hot mama with dark hair, who we will later learn is named Francesca, but Stefano has other things presently on his mind.

You see, Stefano has been commissioned to restore a painting on the inside wall of the church of St. Sebastian. A man named Legnani created the fresco, but left it unfinished. His death over twenty years ago rules out any prospect of Legnani returning to finish the job, so a fellow named Dr. Antonio puts in a word for his friend Stefano. And thus was born at least a temporary stint of employment.

Once he sets foot upon terra firma, Stefano is greeted by the village's midget mayor (Solmi) and an intoxicated chauffeur named Coppola. He notices a strange old woman walking in the distance and sneaks another peek at the bodacious lady who was on the ferry, then heads on into town with his drunken and diminutive guides.

Weird things begin to happen to Stefano almost immediately. Upon arriving at his hotel, he receives a phone call from an anonymous someone, who warns him not to touch the painting. On a more pleasant note, he quickly manages to get laid as well, courtesy of the red-headed teacher wh*re who's staying in an adjacent room. All the while, he keeps hearing talk of Legnani, the "Painter of Agony", whose shadow seems to hover above the village like a darker-tinted Shroud of Turin.

Stefano learns more about Legnani from his friend Antonio (who just happens to coincidentally be in town) and from Mr. Poppi, the owner of the village's only restaurant. Poppi even shows Stefano his private collection of Legnani works (including one of an ugly man's head atop a naked female body) and confides to his guest that Mrs. Poppi used to model for Legnani back in the day. Of course, it's not all a pleasant day of show and tell around the village; Coppola, the drunken chauffeur, gets into some kind of brawl and storms out the door of the restaurant after threatening to tell of the town's secret. Ooh, intriguing- what could it be? Is everybody there a swinger?

Speaking of secrets, it would seem that Antonio has one to share with Stefano, a strange story concerning Legnani. The problem is that every time he's about to reveal it, he gets interrupted. We never get to hear his tale at all, since he plummets from the roof of the hotel in which Stefano is staying. Accident? Suicide? Murder? Amateur bungee-jumping gone wrong? Read on.

Perhaps tired of all the controversy surrounding their recent guest, the hotel staff boots Stefano out on the flimsiest of pretexts, and he's forced to seek assistance from the movie's creepiest character- Lidio, the village idiot who helps out at St. Sebastian and likes to chat about cooking rats and raping women. "Choose your friends wisely" is the first important lesson we learn from this here film.

Lidio takes Stefano to big, decrepit mansion that's tucked away in the woods and apparently still inhabited. Don't worry about the old woman upstairs, Stefano is told, she's old and bed-ridden. And thus begins the protagonist's residence in a gigantic, run-down ruin of a house, where the shadows are alive, the noises are a-plenty, the eyes are watching from upstairs windows, and the paintings on the wall are uncannily similar to those of Legnani. Not my ideal living situation.

Of course, things aren't so great on the job either. For one thing, we learn early in the movie that the church of St. Sebastian was used by the Nazis as a cadaver storage facility. Also unnerving is the constant presence of Lidio, who puts a live animal in the coffin of the recently departed Antonio, to "keep him company". Even the priest is a little "off", though of a decidedly friendlier cast than his retarded handyman. And finally, there's the Legnani fresco, which looks increasingly ominous as the restoration proceeds. After all, was St. Sebastian really stabbed with knives in the presence of maniacally laughing women?

The domestic situation gets even more uncomfortable when Stefano ventures into the attic. He finds a tape-recording device, presses PLAY, and gets an earful of whispery talk about colors, blood, death, darkness, and decay. Apparently, listening to this sinister rant is too much for Stefano to take, especially after the lights go out and the curtain is blown by the wind. He takes off, as any of us would be inclined to do.

While running blindly through the streets of the sleeping village (which is spooky enough by day, what with its little-used canal and relatively small number of human inhabitants), he runs into the strange old woman he saw upon his arrival. His actions seem to indicate that this is "No time for a friendly nocturnal chat", since he high-tails it to the hotel, where he can find solace in the arms of the red-headed ho. Can you imagine the man's surprise when he finds that Francesca, the young sexy diva from the ferry, has not only taken the job of the teacher, but moved into her apartment as well? He's as randy as you or I would be, though she inexplicably shows him the snail collection she keeps in the refrigerator. Giallos are weird that way.

Stefano and Francesca really seem to hit it off, since she moves right into the creepy mansion. The two get as domestic as strangers can be, sharing such things as dinner, bodily fluids, and such treasured possessions as the horrific tape-recording discovered in the attic. Unfortunately, when Stefano later tries to play the tape for Coppola, he finds that it has been mysteriously erased. That's alright, though, the moment of truth is just around the corner.

At this point in the film, Stefano is more concerned about getting to the bottom of the Lignani story than restoring the man's wicked fresco. He digs for info while fishing with the priest, but other than some irrelevant gossip (such as "the old woman back at the mansion was paralyzed by a venereal disease"), he gets nothing from him. Coppola, however, proves more helpful; he tells Stefano than Legnani and his two sisters spent some time in Brazil. After returning to Italy, they had a house built, in which Legnani would paint dying people, with a little logistical help from his friends. Or siblings, to be exact.

Coppola even goes so far as to take Stefano to Legnani's old house, a place that's smaller than the mansion but every bit as creepy (thanks in part to the smiling mouths and lips that are painted across the windows, hence the title of the movie). As they're digging up human bones in the yard, Coppola informs Stefano that the sisters are still alive and living in the village (we learn earlier from Mr. Poppi that Legnani himself died back in 1931, after covering his body with alcohol, setting himself on fire, and running off to who-knows-where). More of the puzzle is put together by a diary (which includes a photo of the Legnani sisters) Stefano finds in the mansion's attic; it is revealed that the Legnani family was involved in some kind of weird cult that espoused communicating with the dead through the questionable double medium of murder and ritualistic painting.

As the end of the film draws near, we find that Stefano is probably not the best boyfriend Italy has to offer. He leaves Francesca alone in the mansion in his frantic pursuit of Legnani lore (after the obligatory promises of "we'll leave just as soon as I get back, honey- you just wait for me here"), while the paralyzed lunatic wails upstairs. While he's out flashing a photo of the Legnani sisters to Mr. Poppi, the Neanderthal known as Lidio is brutally raping and killing his girl, while a mystery someone watches. The rape scene in this movie, while remaining within the confines of an R rating, is one of the film's most disturbing elements, and will probably haunt the viewer more than any of the murders.

Not only does Stefano discover his dead girlfriend trussed
from the attic ceiling like a slab of beef, he also finds that his work on the fresco has been obliterated by a healthy application of muriatic acid. Coppola, his only ally, has disappeared (and eventually gets fished from the village canal), the paralyzed woman in the upstairs room has miraculously rediscovered the fine art of walking, and the cops can find no evidence of murder. Nothing- no Francesca swaying in the attic, no bones in the yard of Legnani's house, no Jimmy Hoffa's body in the walk-in cooler. Apparently, whoever's doing the evil here has a quickie clean-up business on the side.

The film concludes on a downbeat and open-ended note. It becomes obvious to Stefano and the viewer that the laughing killers of the fresco and Legnani's sisters are one and the same. While at the hotel, he gets a call from Francesca, but it's nothing more than a tape-recording designed to lure him back to the mansion. Once he arrives, he finds Lidio being stabbed to death by Legnani's two sisters in the attic, presumably for complicating whatever plan they had in mind with his sexual indiscretion. One of them, the until-recently paralyzed invalid, shows him Legnani's skeleton, which is mounted in a formaldehyde-filled glass case within some kind of wardrobe closet. The other sister, whose face we're not yet permitted to see, stabs Stefano in the chest and pursues him into the woods, where he spends what would surely be a most uncomfortable night.

The next day, exhausted, distraught, and seriously wounded, Stefano stumbles into town and beats on doors in a search for help. Nobody assists the wounded fellow, not even the midget mayor Solmi. After futilely seeking assistance in town, Stefano makes his way to the church, where we learn the identity of the second sister. The camera swings to an exterior shot of the church before the priest either does or does not kill Stefano. You can feel free to dream up your own happy ending but me, I just prefer to think that Stefano gets skinned alive for being a Nosey Parker.

THE BUENO & THE MALO (SPOILER WARNING STILL IN EFFECT)

"House" is an intelligent giallo movie, one that relies more on atmosphere and tension than a high body count. Unlike Argento and Fulci (who actually delight in showing close-up shots of knives entering victims' flesh), Avati does not really rely on gore. Anybody looking for popped-out eyeballs, eviscerated abdomens, and exploded chests will be sorely disappointed.

The landscape of the film lends a super-menacing air to the proceedings. Empty country roads, derelict buildings, a run-down canal, creepy marshes, and a church in which ghostly organ music is usually playing all give the movie a sense of desolation like that found in Zulawski's "Possession". And of course, most of the characters are wacko in their own way, even without the nightmarish score there to back them up.

What might turn the viewer off is the hideous rape scene and death of just about every sane character. The finale is open-ended enough for you to dream up your own conclusion, but it's slightly implied that Stefano gets killed. Probably too downbeat for the glass half-full crowd.

The movie's premise may be a little hard to swallow, but it's downright sensible for a giallo film. I didn't really suspect the priest of being a homicidal woman, but I guess that was Avati's aim. As is the case with most giallos, it's probably best to not reflect too closely on the plot, lest one begin to find a set of gaping holes.

And thus concludes the longest review I've written for Epinions yet. "House" is one of my favorite movies, and should be one of yours too. You may never find yourself in the position of having to restore a chilling fresco in an Italian village full of murderous loonies, but in the event that you do, watching "The House With Laughing Windows" first might enhance your chances of survival.

Recommended: Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age

Write a Review