The House with Laughing Windows (Blu-ray)

While typically famed for its lurid Technicolor hues and grand guignol murders, the Italian giallo thriller had a less bombastic side as well. Erring less towards exploitation than to art, these lesser-seen gems offer some of the greatest rewards for adventurous viewers. Among them, 1976's The House with Laughing Windows, directed and co-written by Pupi Avati (Zeder), rises up as the cream of the crop. 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,