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A Movie A Day: THE HOUSE WITH THE LAUGHING WINDOWS (1976) + DEEP RED (1976)
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the newest October special horror run of A Movie A Day!
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf, recorded on the home DVR or streamed via Instant Netflix and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my usual A Movie A Day or A Movie A Week columns there won’t necessarily be connectors between each film, but you’ll more than likely see patterns emerge day to day. At the end of each standard AMAD I’m going to include a recommendation of a genre film that is either one of my personal favorites or too good of a double feature with the AMAD title to pass up a mention.]
I’m getting in the pretty bad habit of putting these AMADs off until right before bed, when I’m dragging ass and just wanting to curl up under the covers and sleep. I’m watching the movies pretty early on in the day, but it seems like I’m taking longer to review them.
That might not be wholly bad as it gives me time to digest some of these movies a bit. But just on a personal note I’m really tired, so hopefully that explains typos and gives an excuse for any incomplete thoughts or other vagueness.
Today’s movie was Pupi Avati’s Italian thriller with the shit-awesome title of THE HOUSE WITH THE LAUGHING WINDOWS. The flick’s about a painter that is called to a small town in the north of Italy to restore a fresco in a church.
My first thoughts upon seeing the actor playing the painter (Lino Capolicchio) and the main love interest in the movie (Francesca Marciano) was how impressed I was with Avati that he built a time machine and traveled some 30+ years into the future and cast James McAvoy and Zooey Deschanel. I’m not kidding (much), they look creepily like those actors. The picture below doesn’t help my point as from that angle Lino doesn’t look very much like McAvoy, but I swear to you at certain angles he is the spitting image.
Anyway, the fresco Lino is restoring is a horrific depiction of a saint being stabbed to death. The mystery of the movie lies in uncovering the story of the original painter, a man by the name of Legnani, and why he was so obsessed with capturing agony on the canvas (or in this case a church wall).
Of course being an Italian giallo of the ‘70s there’s some grisly murders surrounding the poor restorer as his local friends start dying one by one. They all had some various bits of information that might help Lino solve the mystery of Legnani and someone doesn’t want that information out.
Tone is center stage in the film, which is the very definition of a slow burn. There will be quite a few that won’t have the patience needed to get through this movie and that’s not me judging or putting anyone down. I barely had patience enough to stick through the whole thing. But there were enough little booster scenes and characters to keep me from totally tuning out.
For instance, there is a sharp-dressed (in American flag colors, by the way… white suit, blue shirt and red tie) midget. If this movie had been directed by Dario Argento the midget would have been the killer and the movie would then have been 100 times cooler, but I’ll take what I can get.
Are the crazy last 10 minutes worth the 96 minutes the preceded them? I think so, but then again it was my job to watch this whole thing. I had to sit there no matter what, so any pay-off to a whole movie of build was welcome. You can’t go wrong with murderous old ladies and an eye-lidless corpse in a big jar (and that’s not even the big twist so there).
I will say I felt a little twinge of disappointment that this wasn’t a haunted house movie and that the house with the laughing windows was literally a house with mouths painted over the windows.
The acting seemed fine. That’s always hard to judge in a subtitled film, but thankfully the subtitles were included on the DVD and I wasn’t stuck with those trademark awful Italian dub-jobs. The photography was good, the pace was a bit too slow, but the payoff is there so that’s forgivable.
Final thoughts: Wow, I blazed right through that one. Which probably means that write-up was all surface level and full of laziness on my part. My apologies if that’s how it reads, but I just don’t really feel passionately one way or the other about this title. All in all it’s definitely a recommendation for giallo fans, but those who like their horror a little faster paced this one might be a chore.
All this giallo talk has me itching to include one from the maestro as the recommendation title of the day.
Ah, Deep Red (aka Profondo Rosso, aka The Hatchet Murders) how I love thee. I almost opted for a later Dario Argento movie, a favorite of mine called PHENOMENA or CREEPERS, starring a pre-LABYRINTH Jennifer Connelly because of the little person connection, but considering Avanti’s little person just walks around looking suave and isn’t a deformed killer I went more for same-era giallo.
I use the word a lot and have discussed giallos before, but if you’re not familiar with the term it refers to a specific subset of Italian crime movies. The word “giallo” translates as “yellow” and using the term for crime/mystery/pulp fiction stems from Italian pulp novels identified by their yellow covers.
Argento perfected the giallo with his early films like THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE and popularized a set style of giallo filmmaking. They are typically bloody, exploitative whodunits where we see from the killer’s POV throughout the movie.
Deep Red works as a mystery, thriller and horror film, providing of the best films of Argento’s career. The story surrounds a man (David Hemmings) who witnesses the murder of a psychic from the street. He rushes up to her room which has dozens of portraits on the walls, finding her dead.
He realizes later the killer was there and he likely saw the killer who was camouflaged against all the portraits. The reveal of who the killer is is great and super creepy as the audience realizes we saw the killer as well, but didn’t distinguish the killer from the surroundings.
Joining David Hemmings as he tries to unravel this murder mystery is the lovely Daria Nicolodi, who was Argento’s partner and gave birth to their daughter, Asia, the year this movie came out (in Italy… it came out a year later here in the States).
For all the movie’s quiet suspense there is one “FUCK THAT!!!!” moment which is brought to us by a fucked up running doll. You can see it at the end of the trailer below. It’s scary there, but even more effective in the movie.
DEEP RED, TENEBRE, PHENOMENA, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE and SUSPERIA make up the best work of Argento’s heyday. If you haven’t seen any of those it’s time to plug in some holes your education, boyo! And what perfect time to do it as the leaves change color and everything smells of pumpkin!
Here are the next week’s worth of AMAD titles:
Monday, October 19th: THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1945)
Tuesday, October 20th: DEMON SEED (1977)
Wednesday, October 21th: STAGEFRIGHT (1987)
Thursday, October 22th: DEAD OF NIGHT (1977)
Friday, October 23th: THE SERPENT’S EGG (1978)
Saturday, October 24th: THE SWARM (1978)
Sunday, October 25th: THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (1960)
Tomorrow we dip into the ‘40s again with a thriller called THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE! See you folks then for that one!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
AMAD Halloween Spectacular 2009:
October 1st: Nothing But The Night (& The Wicker Man)
October 2nd: Beware! Children At Play (& The Devil Times Five)
October 3rd: Cameron’s Closet (& Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood)
October 4th: Afraid of the Dark (& The Lady In White)
October 5th: The Pit (& The Gate)
October 6th: Brain Damage (& Basket Case)
October 7th: Brain Dead (& Braindead, aka Dead Alive)
October 8th: Visiting Hours (& Dressed To Kill)
October 9th: Macabre (& The Beyond)
October 10th: Private Parts (& Eating Raoul)
October 11th: Road Games (& Duel)
October 12th: Dead End Drive-In (& Repo Man)
October 13th: Psychic Killer (& Alone In The Dark)
October 14th: The Body Snatcher (& Son of Frankenstein)
October 15th: The Leopard Man (& The Ghost and The Darkness)
October 16th: Wolfen (& Cujo)
October 17th: Madhouse (& Happy Birthday To Me)
Click here for the full 215 movie run of A Movie A Day!
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I remember going back to watching the scene where David Hemmings went down the corridor and looking out for the bit where the flashback showed he'd actually seen the killer but the original scene cut before that point at least on the versions I saw. So it is possible that you can't have seen that vital bit of information. Mind you, doesn't that bit of information count as, if not a twist at least part of the big reveal and maybe not be written about? Just asking.
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It is definitely a slow build and more about atmosphere than scares. It's like the Italian Twin Peaks, but if it didn't do it for you, then it didn't do it for you. Seems like a lot of these films are falling a bit short for you though. Let's hope you can find a few gems before Halloween.
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i ll check them both.
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Your famiglia es from which parte of l'Italia, ¿cuál? Naples? These movies are in your blood. Anima, si? Merci, ami, per tutto l'amore date a questo cinema...et à nous aussi bien, por favor y gracias.
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And he makes caca doodie!
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Suspiria being the way it was. That soundtrack is freaking gold to me.
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...and it's got me in an Argento mood so I might have to pick this up. On another topic, last night I showed my girlfriend From Dust til Dawn. Now she loves "scary" movies" and we've been watching horror flicks for the month so I figured that she knew what she was in for. Now she had told me that she had never sen it, but I figured everyone knew it was a vampire flick. She didn't. Her reaction was so cool when Selma morphed. First she jumped then she had me stop the flick and said, did she just turn into a monster or is this a dream? I just thought it was cool and was a little envious, I would have loved to have seen this flick without knowing the vampire twist. After the movie we talked about other movies that have started out on way then changed gears, like Witness, or Psycho.
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Dunno why, but I really really like the old Euro-horrors, giallos, westerns etc. Even the bad stuff! There's something about the way the Italian and Spanish masters did horror that really appeals to my sensibilities. Can't put my finger on it. But anyway, I love both of these movies... and SUSPIRIA?! Hell yes! It never leaves my top 10. Bava's KILL BABY KILL would be a good one to review... or the terrifying BLACK SABBATH!
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Some lost gems I've not heard of in ages in this series; I've been reading each installment and smiling to myself a whole lot. ("Cameron's Closet... wait.. I remember that one...") The mom-and-pop video store near me when I was a kid had most of this stuff, if not more.
"Deep Red" was not the first Argento movie I saw (that would be "Suspiria"), but I actually liked it more than "Suspiria" as a story to go back to every so often. "Suspiria" is great for getting the Shinola scared out of you, but I have real trouble wanting to go back and re-watch it. -
Since I was about 14 I've kept what I call the "Pupi Avati List". Ever since seeing that horrible, horrible POS he directed REVENGE OF THE DEAD (aka Zeder). Any film that truly makes me feel like I not only wasted my time, but actual anger toward it's badness, I put on the list.
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Me too. I like the how basic, but effective they are. They get past their budgets with cool locations, camera work and tons of atmosphere, plus you never know how far they are going to go with the kills and bloodletting. And, on top of all of that, they have some great music in there and often really dark, downbeat endings. I love em! and I'm pretty sure Quint did Black Sabbath last year if you do a search.
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Went to the UF game over the weekend, so now I gotta catch up with your movies, Quint. Alrighht here I go.
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Zeder is easily twice as good as House With the Laughing Windows, if that gives you any indication. I love the opening of Zeder - really creepy and you have no idea what's happening. Then it goes downhill.This movie is just dull... and a much better pairing for it would have been the excellent Don't Look Now.
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That's a fun time right there!
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Really, we're still getting these bullshit admonishments from people on here? Get over yourselves people.
"I can't believe you haven't seen that movie before! Holy shit, and you call yourself a movie fan?"
Really? Really? In an age where we're inundated with images left and right, where we're told things are must see, when people have fuckin' jobs and family and friends, there are still people that expect other people to have seen every film in existence in order to be a movie critic?
Fuck off.
In between movies there's living to be done. -
Those films are a good place to start with Argento, Quint has made no secret of horror being his genre of choice and the point of AMAD is to fill out gaps is his, and the readers, film education. Why are you so pissed off?
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But I admire the honesty of AMAD and think that most film lovers have a few embarrassing gaps in their film knowledge of films that are generally accepted to be indispensable. A crappy day though is another thing. Hope it improves.
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The problem most people I think have with that one is that the curse is the main character. You are following an abstract force (not an easy thing to pull off). In many ways I've come to like it more than Suspira. Still Deep Red is his masterpiece in my book. Hands down.
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and right quick to boot.
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I love Inferno too. I think it's the most Argento-ey of all his films, even without Goblin. So, I find it hard to choose between Inferno, Suspira and Deep Red. They're all unmistakable, peerless horror. Mother Of Tears though was an embarrassment. I was hoping that it would turn up here after missing out on an review last year.
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It was pretty ballsy to show the killer in the very beginning like that (at least the Anchor Bay dvd shows it -- not sure about the shorter versions). The story seems to drag a bit in places on that dvd (the scenes of David Hemming running around the deserted house seemed a bit long, though still kinda creepy). I think that was the second or third Argento movie I saw - after Suspiria and possibly INFERNO. BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMMAGE is pretty good too, though FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET and CAT O' NINE TAILS weren't on that same level.
I think THWLW was too slow for my liking. The ending was pretty crazy, but I think the movie I imagined it would be, based on what I had read beforehand, was not the movie I saw. -
His abuse of close-ups and gels notwithstanding, there is a hard-to-define magic in his work. Suspiria is just too much - that opening knife kill is so graphic, it made me gasp out loud. And you gotta love those period trailers! Fantastic!
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I'm no film historian, but I can't believe that Roeg (sp?) classic wasn't inspired by Argento's work. Effing scary movie, too. Julie Christie sex scene = boyoyoing!
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Don't Look Now, may have been influenced by an earlier giallo "Who Saw Her Die" Check the trailer out: http://bit.ly/1gJ7xI
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That's clips. Here's the trailer: http://bit.ly/1thKI4
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The venice setting sure does look familiar... And George freakin' Lazenby?! That is too much. Will have to see this one in full. Thanks!
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And for once in a Dario Argento mvoie there's a plot that kinda makes sense... kinda!I need to rewatch Suspiria, and i never saw Inferno, Tenebre ou Deep Red.
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I am just going to say, I am the guy who has seen all the seminal films. No really: Ford, Hawks, Griffith, Murnau, Ozu, Kurasawa, Hitchcock, Goddard, Kiarostami', etc. I have seen pretty much every movie that is listed as an "essential" film. For fuck sake, I have a copy of Eisenstein's "Film Form" and "Film Theory" on my night stand, and own a copy of Maya Deren;s Meshes in the Afternoon. Having said that, I doubt I would be interested in Quint's opinion if he was just another carbon copy film scholar. I enjoy his opinion because he is a film geek, self taught via video rentals and cable TV. His taste and perspective is completely different from a scholars or another film historians, and from mine. And his taste and the films he gets are what I am looking for, something outside of the norm.
Few people can be experts in a wide range of subject matters. Maybe Quint doesn't have a classical film education, but in my opinion that is an advantage for him. He doesn't follow the "party" line and can give us a completely original opinion instead of regurgitating what his teachers or the critics have said. And he has seen a lot more schlock than I have, so I respect his knowledge in the field of "crappy" movies.
Having said that, I still wonder if he has seen THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL yet. -
The scene with that awesome disco-ish music courtesy of Goblin as the main character is tearing apart the wall. The scene is ridiculously long and awesome because it is just so out of nowhere and the music is so good!
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Boba, in regards to Who Saw Her Die... stay tuned.Continental, in regards to The Bad and The Beautiful... stay tuned. You have a bit longer to wait than Boba, but stay tuned.Ace. We've had this conversation before, but all I can say is that I started writing about film on AICN when I was 16 years old. All my growth as a movie geek and commenter has been from learning on the job. My film education going back about 30 years was pretty solid before AMAD, but from the time I became an editor (around 4 or 5 years ago) I noticed that even though I was gathering together as many classics and vintage film on DVD as I could get my hands on I was letting the pressing news take up all my time. In this industry it's all about what's coming out this weekend, this month, next year. AMAD was my way of incorporating my exploration of cinema into my regular work schedule, forcing me to not put these movies on the back burner.I assume you had a similar period of film discovery... probably in your college or early 20s years. Nobody was born having seen everything. I was in the right place at the right time to get this job and have been very lucky to make a living talking about an artform I'm so passionate about. My perspective is growing considerably, but I'll never apologize for sharing my passion with like-minded people even when I was a young, dumb kid. You might think I'm not so young, but just as dumb now and that's fine, but I'm still only 28 years old. At the rate I'm burning through these films by the time I hit 30 I doubt there's going to be many giant "Oh my God" movies left in any genre or era of film. I don't think that's a bad pace myself.
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damn that fucker is scary! thanks allot for the upcoming nightmares quint, I'll have to check out the whole movie soon
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I remember you had a big confessional piece where you 'fessed up to being only 19 or 20. It was the preface to some review. I remember being surprised. Do you recall the piece by any chance? Of course, you are still under 30...bastard. ;-)
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I remember that, too... although it wasn't much of a confessional. I think it was an offhand comment in a review and people freaked out in talkback saying they couldn't trust anything I said anymore because I was too young. There was a bit of back and forth in the talkback that got more into the age thing (basically me saying if you liked my stuff before what difference does it make if I was young? etc), but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the point of the piece. I don't remember the specific story. Maybe something like my Almost Famous review which I remember talking about my age in because I really related to William in that movie... we kind of had mirror experiences growing up... although I didn't lose my virginity to Fairuza Balk and Anna Paquin in a threesome. Unfortunately. But yeah, I don't remember which article that was off the top of my head. Might do some digging and try to find it when I'm not exhausted.
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Even that early scene with Hemmings and his friend chilling on the dark street is amazing.
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...well, Ace of Wands stole a bit of my thunder. I remember the bruhaha over Quint's age in the piece I mentioned above, and I remember laughing because what did people think AICN was? AICN was an extension of usenet conversations and launched around the same time as the Internet Movie Database (another thing with its roots in usenet groups). It was a "for fans, by fans" thing and people were shocked that the big fat orange-haired kid stoked the site with his buddies? Now, you can make the case about various conflicts of interest through the year as the site has been at the vanguard of this strange cross-pollination between traditional and new media, the fan and the critic. However, at its heart, it is still "for fans, by fans" with all the negatives and positives that come with it.
It's no surprise that AICN is the host of the Butt-numb-athon and the Tarantino filmfests. These are in the same spirit as Quint's movies of the day (or Harry's DVD reviews for that matter). A foundational philosophy of the site is to encourage people to experiment with what they watch and how they view a film.
Film appreciation is not just sitting in a room with Roger Ebert going over "The 400 Blows" frame by frame. It is also stuff like this, powering through a stack of horror movies that you would never watch otherwise to see what you can find. The term "diamond in the rough" exists for a reason other than the movie "Aladdin." It means getting out there into the bad and seeing what good you can find. Most of the films you see are of the "one and done" variety, but I can think of a number of films that I rented or saw on a lark (Lifeforce, Get Carter, Rambo 4, My Name Is Nobody) that I now own and have seen a number of times. I can sit down and discuss the minutia of Pan's Labyrinth, Seven Samurai, and Alphaville with the best of them, but man, I love introducing friends to the low-brow stuff, too. Stuff I would never find if I just concerned myself with the classics or the critical darlings.
If Quint is all caught up by 30, this is what will happen. He will start going back to some other films. In doing so, he will look at them with a more critical, learned eye. As he does so, his perceptions of those films and of film in general will change. As those perceptions change, all that was old will become new again. That's the nature of getting older, living life, and looking back on prior experience with fresh perspective. That is film appreciation, as much if not more so than supporting your local indie theatre's lecture and movie night.
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