The House with Laughing WindowsMovies like The House with Laughing Windows
- Key Features:
- Mystery, Restoration, Artist, Small town, Supernatural elements, Cult, Psychological horror, Giallo, Violence-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, stylized
- Target Audience:
- Horror fans, Mystery lovers, Fans of Italian cinema, Art history enthusiasts
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Unease → Dread
The House with Laughing Windows

A young restorer is commissioned to save a fresco representing the suffering of St. Sebastiano, which was painted on the wall of a local church by a mysterious, long-dead artist.
The House with Laughing Windows
A young restorer travels to a small village to restore a medieval painting to its former glory. She will put her life in danger due to a curse attached to the painting.

While restoring a fifteenth-century painting Julia reveals a hidden Latin phrase. A series of murders begin to rock her small world of art experts, patrons and restorers, and she finds that the mystery of the painting is interwoven with the mystery of the deaths around her.

Oliviero is a drunk, burned-out writer who amuses himself by hosting orgies at his grand country manor and humiliating his wife Irina. When a number of women are murdered in grisly fashion, Oliviero becomes a prime suspect.

A middle-aged woman, traumatized from the death of her adulterous lover, moves into a room at a New Orleans boarding house where the blind landlord becomes suspicious to her activities of continuing her affair with her dead lover.

After a doctor kills his mistress and himself while researching the mysterious previous owner of his Boston home, his colleague, Dr. Norman Boyle, takes over his studies and moves his family into the Boston mansion. Soon after, Boyle's young son Bob becomes plagued by visions of a young girl, who warns him of the danger within the house.

Middle-aged Giulietta grows suspicious of her husband, Giorgio, when his behavior grows increasingly questionable. One night when Giorgio initiates a seance amongst his friends, Giulietta gets in touch with spirits and learns more about herself and her painful past. Slightly skeptical, but intrigued, she visits a mystic who gives her more information -- and nudges her toward the realization that her husband is indeed a philanderer.

A celebrated painter receives a visit from a cardinal's assistant, who informs him that his mother could become a saint.

Valeria, young secretary of a producer, lives with an eccentric mother and secretly writes for a successful screenwriter, Alessandro. One day, she receives an unusual present from a stranger: it’s the plot of a movie about the mysterious but really-happened theft of a famous Caravaggio’s painting.

Inspector Tellini investigates serial crimes where victims are paralyzed while having their bellies ripped open with a sharp knife.

The Catholic Church secretly investigates Caravaggio as the Pope weighs whether to grant him clemency for killing a rival.

George and Lucia are newlyweds and have also been lucky enough to find a home at a low price , very low . Maybe too low . In fact the house is haunted by two lovers who, a thousand years ago, were surprised by the girl's mother who subsequently turned them into pillars of salt . But there is a way to break the magic and free the two lovers caught in the curse and it is all in the hands of the newlyweds on their wedding night . Will they succeed ?

A painter facing a creative block arranges to spend the weekend in the country at his mistress's villa. While staying there, his sanity begins to disintegrate.

The morning Stella decides to take her own life, a stranger knocks at her door claiming the guest room he booked for the night. Surprised but charmed by this man who seems to know her very well, Stella decides to let him in. But when Sandro, the man who broke Stella's heart, joins them at home, this odd situation turns immediately into chaos.

When a cynical journalist accepts a wager that he won't survive the night in a haunted castle, it unlocks an odyssey of sexual torment, undead vengeance, and a dark seductress who surrenders the gravest of pleasures.

Dino craft practice tattoos, Bruna is a beautician; their studies are facing each other. They learn of a mysterious treasure hidden in a chair that belonged to a woman now dead.

Arturo, the successful owner of an art gallery, and Renzo, a talented but decadent painter, are old friends who cannot stop bickering. One day, Arturo comes up with a solution to all their problems, but the plan they concoct turns out to be crazier and riskier than they originally expected.

Following the death of her wealthy husband, American widow Kathryn West migrates to Italy and takes up a reclusive existence in a luxurious villa. After quickly succumbing to the charms of a local man, she lets him move into the villa and the two are later joined by his sister, which soon leads to complications.

When Simon brings his twelve year-old son, Finn, to rural Vermont to help flip an old farmhouse, they encounter the malicious spirit of Lydia, a previous owner. And now with every repair they make – she's getting stronger.

A posh couple experience car trouble on their way to a villa party and stop into a local mechanic's shop for assistance, unaware of his shady background. After he and his mentally challenged assistant fix the car, the couple invite them to the party to return the favor, leading to an evening of mayhem.

Asso (Ace), the best poker-player in town, was killed in his wedding night, because he won too much against a bad loser. In the "final" game in heaven the clerk on duty also lost, so Asso can come back to this world as a ghost to search for a good man for his wife (widow). Who is good enough for the wife of Asso ?

Five people travelling by camper crash into a tree. When they recover, the road they were driving on has been replaced by an impenetrable forest and a wooden house.

During a winter storm, Ursus offers shelter to two orphans, Gwynplaine and Déa; some years later, they are still living together. Gwynplaine has become a famous star, but his success threatens his relationships with Déa and Ursus.

To save his crumbling and rapidly-depopulating rural town, its mayor fakes a gruesome murder to attract media attention. His plan initially succeeds, but soon the situation will spiral out of control.

The suicide of a prominent wine producer unleashes a series of mysterious murders.

A husband murders his wife, and years later her ghost emerges from a witch's mirror to take her revenge.

Eccentric and full of manias, Michele is a young high school professor who defines himself as “not used to happiness”. He realizes his life is meaningless if he doesn’t have a woman by his side but, after a series of rather disastrous experiences, he feels more alone than ever. Then, out of the blue, a new French teacher called Bianca arrives at school. Amongst uncertainties and contradictions, the two start dating. In the meantime, a series of homicides take place and a police officer begins to suspect that Michele is involved. Bianca will save him providing an alibi at the right moment, but then, everything goes wrong again.

A rich, mentally-unstable man with a penchant for playing deadly S&M games with women who resemble his dead wife, sparks off a chain of bizarre events after getting remarried.

A young man returns to his countryside hometown to investigate the unclear circumstances behind the death of his father, ostensibly killed by Fascists in 1936, before his birth. As he unravels a web of lies that seems to encompass the whole town, he finds himself entangled in the same web.

Victor Vautier is incorrigible: he's in constant motion, working several cons at once, using different names and changing disguises. He's charming and outrageous, incapable of uttering a sentence that isn't embellished or an outright lie. His life goal is to make enough money to build a sea wall to protect Mont-Saint-Michel. Charlotte, a parole officer, shows up: she's young and seems taken in by Victor. He discovers she lives above the Senlus Museum, where her parents are the curators. With two pals he decides to steal a priceless El Greco triptych and then ransom it back to the cultural ministry. What will Charlotte do when she realizes he's used her to make a fortune?

Art professor Nino Rolfe attempts to break down his wife Teresa's conventional modesty. Noticing her affection for their daughter's fiancé, Nino instigates her sexual interest in him - setting off a chain of unexpected events and emotional complications...

A woman with psychic powers has a vision of a murder that took place in a house owned by her husband.

Eight years have passed since Sara Wolfe and Eddie Baker escaped the House on Haunted Hill. Now the kidnapped Ariel, Sara's sister, goes inside the house with a group of treasure hunters to find the statue of Baphomet, worth millions and believed to be the cause of the House's evil.

An American writer living in Rome witnesses an attempted murder that is connected to an ongoing killing spree in the city and conducts his own investigation, despite he and his girlfriend being targeted by the killer.

Laura and her father Wilson arrive at a cottage off the beaten path in order to repair it since its owner will soon put the house on sale. They will spend the night there in order to start the repairs the following morning. Everything seems to go on smoothly until Laura hears a sound that comes from outside and gets louder and louder in the upper floor of the house. Wilson goes up to see what is going on while she remains downstairs on her own waiting for her father to come down. The plot is based on a true story that occurred in the 1940s in a small village in Uruguay. La casa muda focuses on the last seventy eight minutes, second by second, as Laura tries to leave the house unharmed and discovers the dark secret it hides.

Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.

Her name is Mina, but she is called Bambola (doll). Upon the death of her mother, she and her homosexual brother, Flavio, open a pizzeria. A man named Ugo loans Bambola the money, but is then killed in a fight with another one of her boyfriends, Settimio. While visiting Settimio in jail, she meets a sadistic man named Furio, and they begin a relationship.

A young journalist buys a used typewriter and notices some text still legible on the ribbon; he reconstructs the story of a scientist who discovered that some types of terrain have the power to revive the dead.

A disturbed young embalmer digs the grave of his recently deceased girlfriend and brings her body to his family villa with help from his strange housekeeper. But his bouts of insanity are just beginning.

Greta is a beautiful young woman abused by her brother Franz and left to die in childbirth by her illicit lover, the aristocrat Dr. von Ravensbrück. Bereft with grief, Franz reanimates his dead sister using a formula engraved on an ancient Incan medallion. Greta then returns as an undead avenging angel, reaping revenge on the Ravensbrück family and her manically possessive brother.

Roger Cobb, a divorced horror novelist coming to terms with the disappearance of his young son, inherits an old mansion home to malevolent supernatural residents.

In a dystopian future, the Vatican knows how to resurrect people. A priest discovers a conspiracy behind the resurrections and their possible link to a series of murders.

Roberto Benigni adapts the classic children's tale by Carlo Collodi for the big-budget family-oriented comedy Pinocchio.

Father Maurice, a priest living in a residential college for priests in Rome, is called out one day to "exorcise" the devil from someone. The devil turns out to be in the form of a fun-loving man called Giuditta. What Father Maurice doesn't know is that this type of devil will turn his life around.

Carmen, a brave journalist, discovers soon after her mother's death that she has inherited her grandma's house. She decides to move there without knowing it hides dark secrets.

A female rock band acquires an infamous composition by Niccolò Paganini that was used in satanic rituals. When the band decides to record the song and film a video in Paganini's old mansion, the spirit of the deceased composer is summoned and the band unlocks a portal to Hell.

A couple is terrorized in their new house haunted by the vengeful ghost of the woman's former husband who possesses her young son.

Luisa De Dominicus is a Milanese piano teacher who moves to Lucca to be with the man she loves: Ferdinando 'Bonci' Marinotti, a city councilman campaigning for mayor on a platform of moral values. She is of the belief that Fernando is single, living with his ailing mother. This, of course, is far from the case. The boys living in her apartment building mistakenly believe Luisa is a call-girl who uses piano teaching as a cover for her true profession, and word soon spreads among the building's dirty old men. The resourceful boys drill a well-concealed hole in the wall between Signorina Luisa's flat and the bedroom of the landlord's son, Marcello Busatti, allowing them a spectacular view of their spectacular neighbor. Marcello quickly becomes infatuated with Luisa, but is also conflicted regarding her supposed profession. Eventually Luisa learns of Fernando's philandering nature, and after a vigorous misunderstanding, satisfies Marcello's unrequited lust/love.

An eccentric family portrait set during the May 1968 protests in Paris. A nine-year-old boy stays with his grandparents and uncles while his parents protest. When an illustrious guest seeks refuge in the apartment, the family’s dynamics change.

Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men. A woman offers to take an injured man to the hospital. A widowed father and his son seek for a new wife/mother. A man seeks revenge for a woman's honor. A bored housewife tries to explain to her husband that he's not as romantic as he used to be.

A photographer and his models go to an old, abandoned castle for a photo shoot. Unbeknownst to them, the castle is inhabited by a lunatic who believes himself to be the reincarnated spirit of a 17th-century executioner whose job it is to protect the castle against intruders.

Energetic priest Don Camillo returns to the town of Brescello for more political and personal duels with Communist mayor Peppone.

A man wakes up one morning with an annoying ringing sound in his ears. A note on the fridge says: "Your friend Luigi has died. P.S. I took the car". The problem is that he does not even remember who this guy Luigi is. This is just the beginning of a tragicomic day during which he will be plunged into the folly of the world. One of those days that changes your life forever.

In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.

Belle Duke, in order to get revenge on her former lover Philip Bang, organize his jail break. But instead of Philip is the Italian Felice Brianza, AKAS Felix, to escape. Now Felix is obliged to help Philip to escape. He will succeeded and from that moment on the two will join to defraud Belle. The swindle plot become more complicate when Felix falls in love for Philip's daughter.

Sarah returns with her father and uncle to fix up the family's longtime summerhouse after it was violated by squatters in the off-season. As they work in the dark, Sarah begins to hear sounds from within the walls of the boarded-up building. Although she barely remembers the place, Sarah senses the past may still haunt the home.

The story of a man who murdered thirty-two people, gained power, and then got afraid because too many people wanted to kill him. One August morning, he disappeared. For fifteen years, everyone believed him dead.

In 1950s Italy, a government official arrives in a rural town to investigate a grisly child murder. The culprit is a young boy who claims he acted in order to kill the Devil itself.

Engineer Quiller has become rich by selling his completely indestructible shop-window glass to jeweleries around the world. But this got him lots of enemies too: the insurance agencies, who've lost hundreds of customers, and the burglarers. When he temporarily looses his memory and voice in an accident, of all people, a family of thieves finds and cares for him - believing he's a pocket-picker. Things get complicated when he falls in love with his host Tilli.

Two dramatic stories. In an undetermined past, a young cannibal (who killed his own father) is condemned to be torn to pieces by some wild beasts. In the second story, Julian, the young son of a post-war German industrialist, is on the way to lie down with his farm's pigs, because he doesn't like human relationships.

A young woman inherits a mansion, only to discover that it is haunted by witches and evil spirits.

An aspiring actor discovers that his spacious new apartment comes complete with eight friendly ghosts.

Con artist Gwen moves into Newton's empty home without his knowledge and begins setting up house, posing as his new wife.

A delirious young woman feels trapped in a remote mansion at the mercy of a madman.

When socialite and heiress Julie Wardh begins receiving blackmail letters attributed to a mysterious serial killer, she suspects her cruel and sadistic former lover Jean is behind them. With her husband Neil frequently out of town, she falls into the arms of her friend's cousin George, and as the unknown assassin begins to make his move, she fears that one of the three men in her life may be the killer.

While staying at a picturesque village, a teen encounters the underground world of art forgery.

November 2, 1975: Pier Paolo Pasolini is murdered in the outskirts of Rome. The suspect, a 17-year-old hustler, pleads to have acted in self-defense, citing Pasolini's notorious sexual habits as proof. However, many inconsistencies start to undermine his version, pointing to him not having acted alone or even being assaulted in the first place. Was Pasolini also killed for another reason?

Italian Gothic horror that tells the tale of a man who stops at a remote castle hoping to get medical help for an injured woman, only to find the inhabitants mirror the darker sides of the woman and himself.

Antonio and Peppino live in a small town in central Italy: Peppino is the barber, Totò is maintained by the rich but avaricious wife Teresa.

What if ... you let a stranger into your house to use your phone, but while you've been patiently waiting in the kitchen, he just disappears ... or does he? Félix, an architect who has just split up with his girl-friend and inhabits a huge mansion in Barcelona, finds out how many hiding places there really are in his house. But are there enough to hide another person, a strange parasite of living space? Or is Félix really going insane?

A young woman in early-1900s Italy searches for a mystical sanctuary where her stillborn child can be brought back to life long enough to be baptized.

Locked in a school closet during Halloween 1962, young Frank witnesses the ghost of a young girl and the man who murdered her years ago. Shortly afterward he finds himself stalked by the killer and is soon drawn to an old house where a mysterious Lady In White lives. As he discovers the secret of the woman he soon finds that the killer may be someone close to him.

André Masson, specialist in modern art, receives a letter according to which a painting by Egon Schiele had been discovered in Mulhouse. He finds that the work has been missing since 1939. This discovery puts his career in danger.

Jérémie returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He decides to stay for a few days with Martine, the man's widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a priest with strange intentions make Jérémie's short stay in the village take an unexpected turn.

During World War II, Italian villagers hide their wine from the German army.

When Carlos invites his father and his brother to spend a pleasant New Year in a strange house isolated in the forest with him and his wife Ana. But what promised to be a quiet family dinner, suddenly is interrupted by the presence of a peculiar vagabond, dwarf and very bad man, who claims to be God.

When the family patriarch is murdered, seven women find themselves trapped together in his mansion to solve the mystery.

A 20th century European village is haunted by the ghost of a murderous little girl.

While walking along the beach, Christian and his girlfriend discover a mysterious woman washed ashore. The following day, Christian meets the woman again at a yacht party and soon finds himself entangled in a web of lust, intrigue and murder.

A sudden tragedy hits a wealthy middle-class family from North-East Italy. Tensions, hidden secrets and small hypocrisies emerge.

A reporter unearths an urban legend about a home being constructed from rooms where horrific tragedies have occurred.

An archaeology student photographs a mysterious naked woman by a waterfall, unaware that she is a female demon called Haggia, who soon takes possession of him via a cursed amulet.

A street priest struggling to save his church learns his late uncle left him a small business that could turn his fortune around: he'll soon realize that said business is in fact... a brothel!

Frederick Loren invites five strangers to the party of a lifetime and offers each of them $10,000 if they can stay the night in the reportedly haunted house. Armed with a gun for protection, each guest arrives in a hearse and will either leave in it much richer…Or dead.

A writer secludes himself in the mountains and falls in lust with local Berta. After realizing the oddities of the rural community the author starts to question the lines between reality and fiction.

In a village of the Po valley where the earth is hard and life miserly, the priest and the communist mayor are always fighting to be the head of the community. If in secret, they admired and liked each other, politics still divided them as it is dividing the country. And when the mayor wants his "People's House"; the priest wants his "Garden City" for the poor. Division exist between the richest and the poorest, the pious and the atheists and even between lovers. But if the people are hard as the country, they are good in the bottom of there heart.

In the 1930s, a young reverend and his family are forced to confront their worst fears when they discover their new home holds a horrifying secret.

Two proud and estranged brothers, a disputed inheritance and a past that comes back. When he hears about the passing of his father - whom he has not seen in many years - Salvo returns to his native Sicily. He intends to convince his brother Lillo to sell the family farm and save his pizzeria, which is about to go bankrupt - a secret that he has kept even from his wife and children. But things will not be easy and Salvo will have to come to terms with his choices. A bittersweet comedy about family relations and how one never stops growing up, not even at fifty.

A bohemian artist travels from London to Italy with his estranged son to sell the house they inherited from his late wife.

Villa Primic was once a luxurious home. Now in disrepair, the Primic family home is up for sale by the owner, Rose, and her two heirs, Massimiliano and Adele. The head of the family, Valerio, is vehemently opposed to this. The reunion is going to be complicated...

A washed-up horror novelist arrives in a sleepy town on a book tour, only to stumble into a string of eerie murders. Haunted by dreams of a ghostly girl named V and guided by the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe, he’s drawn into a nightmarish world where fiction and reality blur—and the story he’s chasing leads back to his own buried guilt.

After the mysterious death of his Aunt, a confirmed skeptic lawyer, Bryan Becket, dismisses reports that her house is haunted and moves in. Immediately occurrences begin he cannot explain. And beyond the occurrences there is something about the house which gnaws at Becket - some strange connection he senses he has with the house's past. Soon, the haunting turns personal.

After the assault of a young woman in their seaside town, a security expert and his family get caught in a powerful riptide of secrets and lies.

Adriano wakes up in a hotel room next to the dead body of his lover, Laura. The door is locked from the inside and there is no evidence of anybody else in the room.

Rome, 1957. A woman, Cabiria, is robbed and left to drown by her boyfriend, Giorgio. Rescued, she resumes her life and tries her best to find happiness in a cynical world. Even when she thinks her struggles are over and she has found happiness and contentment, things may not be what they seem.

Southern France, 19th century. Teresa, a young girl, arrives at an isolated female boarding school that is tyrannically mastered by Mrs. Fourneau, the strict headmistress, whose protective shadow haunts Luis, her weak son.

In 1950s Ferrara, a lonely innkeeper explores a series of relationships while awaiting her missing husband’s return from war.

When young Tommi goes missing during a festival in the Dolomites in 2010, his parents are devastated. Five years later, a boy is found with no name or records; DNA tests prove it is Tommi. But while Tommi's father Manuel welcomes him back with open arms, his mother Linda is not convinced that it is her son. Suspicion and superstition permeate the pores of this eerie mystery thriller.

Irena, a Ukrainian woman, comes to Italy looking for a job as a maid. She does everything she can to become a beloved nanny for an adorable little girl, Thea. However, that is just the very beginning of her unknown journey.

