The House with Laughing Windows: Limited Edition – Arrow Video (UHD)

Theatrical Release Date: Italy, 1976
Director: Pupi Avati
Writers: Pupi Avati, Antonio Avati, Gianni Cavina, Maurizio Costanzo
Cast: Lino Capolicchio, Francesca Marciano, Gianni Cavina, Giulio Pizzirani, Bob Tonelli, Vanna Busoni, Pietro Brambilla

Release Date: December 2nd, 2025
Approximate Running Time: 110 Minutes 42 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen / 2160 Progressive / HEVC / H.265 / HDR10
Rating: NR
Sound: LPCM Mono Italian
Subtitles: English
Region Coding: Region Free
Retail Price: $59.95

"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." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 5/5

Here’s the information provided about this release's transfer, “The film is presented in 4K resolution in HDR10.

The original 35mm camera negative was scanned and restored in 4K 16-bit at L’Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna.

The film was color graded at Rustore Studios, London.

All materials sourced for this new master were made available by Acek and SND.”

The House with Laughing Windows comes on a 100 GB triple layer 4K UHD.

Disc Size: 90.2 GB

Feature: 68.6 GB

The source looks excellent; flesh tones look healthy, colors look correct, image clarity, contrast, black levels, and compression are solid, and the image retains an organic look.

Audio: 5/5

This release comes with one audio option, a LPCM mono mix in Italian with removable English subtitles. The audio sounds excellent; dialogue comes through clearly, everything sounds balanced, ambient sounds are well-represented, and the score sounds appropriately robust.

Extras:

Extras for this release include a theatrical trailer (3 minutes 39 seconds, Dolby Digital mono Italian with removable English subtitles), a essay by film critic Kat Ellinger titled The Art of Suffering (14 minutes 59 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English with removable English subtitles for Italian film clips), a essay by film critic Chris Alexander titled La Casa e Sola (19 minutes 12 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English with removable English subtitles for Italian film clips), a a documentary on the film titled Painted Screams, directed by Federico Caddeo, featuring interviews with co-writer/director Pupi Avati, co-writer Antonio Avati, assistant director Cesare Bastelli, actors Lino Capolicchio, Francesca Marciano, Giulio Pizzirani, and Pietro Brambilla, production designer Luciana Morosetti, assistant camera operator Toni Scaramuzza, sound mixer Enrico Blasi, and Emanuele Taglietti, son of assistant production designer Otello Taglietti (94 minutes 3o seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with removable English subtitles), an audio commentary with film critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson, an audio commentary with film critics Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth, reversible cover art, a double-sided foldout poster, and a 60-page perfect-bound book with cast & crew information, an essay titled A Window onto Pain: fascism, Hegemony, and the Paradox of Memory in Pupi Avati’s The House with Laughing Windows written by Matt Rogerson, an essay titled Queer Unmasking: Defilement as an Act of Baptism in The House with Laughing Windows written by Willow Maclay, an essay titled Smooth Like Syphilis, Hot Like Blood written by Alexia Kannas, an essay titled The Resurrection of Saint Sebastian: Suffering, Sacrifice and Secrecy in Pupi Avati’s Restoration Comedy The House with Laughing Windows written by Anton Bitel, an essay titled Outside of Modernity, Outside of History: The House with Laughing Windows written by Stefano Baschiera, and information about the transfer.

Summary:

Although Pupi Avati continues to make films and has worked consistently since the mid-1970s, he is not as well known as his contemporaries. While he’s most known for two horror films he directed, Zeder and The House with Laughing Windows, most of his output is from other genres. Besides directing, he’s a prolific screenwriter whose notable credits for other directors include Dracula in the Provinces and Macabre.

A restorer is commissioned to save a controversial mural of Saint Sebastian located in a rural community church.

Where most Italian cinema of the 1970s was driven by cycles of films that piggybacked whatever was popular at the time, the same cannot be said about The House with Laughing Windows, a film unlike anything else. The House with Laughing Windows is a folk horror film, it is a mystery film, and it is a giallo. That said, no one genre dominates, as they perfectly fuse into a truly unique cinematic experience.

The narrative, like the painting the protagonist is restoring, slowly peels away its layers, bringing things into focus as it reveals the truth. While the initial setup does an effective job drawing you in, things start off mundanely before a sinister tone creeps in and engulfs the rest of the narrative. A strength of the narrative is how it builds momentum by building upon tense moments; every time the protagonist gets closer to uncovering the truth, something derails him.

To say that The House with Laughing Windows is a disturbing film is an understatement. Its opening credits firmly establish an unnerving tone; a restrained hanging man screams every time a knife pierces his flesh. Although this sequence is shot in a striking sepia tone, The House with Laughing Windows is not as reliant on overly stylish visual set pieces like most 1970s Italian horror and giallo films. Ultimately, The House with Laughing Windows is a grueling but rewarding film that overflows with symbolism and atmosphere.

Arrow Video gives The House with Laughing Windows a definitive release. Highly recommended.

Note about the 4K screenshots: It is not possible to make Dolby Vision or HDR10 screenshots that faithfully match the experience of watching a film in motion on a TV. Instead of not having any screenshots, all of the 4K screenshots are m2ts taken with a MPC-HC player and lossless PNGs.

Written by Michael Den Boer