The House with Laughing Windows (originally La Casa Dalle Finestre che Ridono) is a 1976 thriller directed by Pupi Avati. It's about young Stefano (Lino Capolicchio), a young man who arrives in a sleepy little town in Emila Romagna to restore a mysterious fresco painted by a notorious local painter, Buono Legnani, a painting that apparently hides a secret so dark someone would kill to hide it... repeatedly.
This movie provides examples of:
- Ax-Crazy: Buono Legnani and his sisters.
- Brother & Sisters Incest: the town believes the Legnani siblings endulged in this. They were right.
- Downer Ending: Or, if you're really optimistic, you might prefer to think that the sound of police sirens at the very end means that the town mayor decided to finally stand up to the Legnani sisters, making the ending more of a bittersweet one.
- Evil Old Folks: The Legnani sisters are an elderly couple of serial killers.
- Faux Affably Evil: The Legnani sisters act nice and motherly towards Stefano as they show him their brother's preserved corpse while they're brutally torturing a man before trying to kill Stefano as well.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Painter Of Agonies.
- No Name Given: One of the Legnani sisters' name was Laura. The other one's is never revealed.
- Siblings in Crime: Bruno Legnani and his sisters were in fact responsible for a brutal series of tortures and murderers. After Bruno's death the sisters carry on the killings.
- Skeletons in the Coat Closet: The main premise and used literally with Buono's skeleton in formaldehyde in the sisters' house's closet.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: The priest is actually one of Buono Legnani's sisters. Nothing even remotely sweet about her, though.
- The Reveal: Number 1, the fresco has Buono Legnani's sisters martyrizing St. Sebastian, 2, both of them are alive and 3, one of them is the priest.
- Town with a Dark Secret
