Pupi Avati
La Casa Dalle Finestre Che Ridono

It is and will remain the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. I watched it when I was 13 years old, and I didn't sleep for two nights, and for a week I had serious trouble falling asleep: I was terrified. Since the apartment we lived in had a long corridor with rooms following one another and a bathroom at the end, I held my bladder every night to avoid going there out of fear that from the kitchen door, as I passed by, a knife would strike me from the darkness.
A devastating psycho-horror impact that subtly accompanied me for months and that I took with me on vacation to my grandparents' old house in the village, which was like the old house in the film, where when I returned late at night, I had the anxiety of expecting to see, in a small window near the sink facing a blind alley, the face of a "sister" laughing and staring at me...

A few years later I watched it again, and while it wasn't like the first time, I still felt a discomfort and unease that stayed with me always: "it's badly shot, the actors act so-so," and so what? Sophisms that don't capture the effectiveness of the film that literally makes you crap your pants. Even now, when I watch it again, it's disturbing, a stomach ache... The chills become eternal when I compare the photos of my grandmothers from their youth with the film's image of the photo of the "protagonists" in their damned Brazilian trip: the same hair, the same clothes, the same smile...

The "sisters" are the ultimate horror, nothing and no one can come close to them, there is no novel, no reason, their actions create no room for justification, there is that music that chokes the scream in your throat. It is the embodiment of pure evil that comes from the central zones of hell and paralyzes us. And the brother, a loved "in extremis" painter, named Buono (Legnani), as if good and evil were inevitably linked when considered.

And the mathematical absurdity is that if you're part of this game, the "good feelings," which make you think you're a good and thus just person from your point of view, mockingly feed the other side, creating conflict, opposition: duality feeds on pain. Thus we can link this to the hallucinatory collusion of the village's omertà, as if everyone recognized in them that cursed potential and turned the other way to avoid facing it, to not admit that we are all "monsters," that we are at the mercy of mysterious forces, and the shame of the wretched within us blocks us in damnation. One takes refuge in consolation by justifying silence and trying to remove it: but, let's remember, nothing is erased, nothing... Postponing the confrontation strengthens our enemy.

The body is straight but slightly forward, the sole of the foot fully adheres to the ground, but the weight is on the forefeet. When you strike, the abdominal muscles control the balance, shoulder, elbow, and a slight wrist twist, combined with clenching the phalanges around the handle with pressure that momentarily turns the nails white, whip the blow. Imperceptibly, the heel lifts slightly during the blow, so the macabre biomechanical aesthetics are impeccably served to our nightmares. The upper dead point of horror expands immeasurably.

The stab is sharp with an almost immediate but light recoil, allowing the blade to sink into the flesh just enough, not penetrating too deeply to avoid causing permanent damage too soon. The knife thus tears appropriately. The skill of not touching any vital organ is admirable. In this obscene equilibrium, the hanged finds themselves slowly bleeding in pain, slow enough to consciously meet their own death. The moment of passing nourishes the horrid pleasure of the one who caused it.

Depending on the blood splatters present on the white handkerchief worn to protect the hair, we understand the skill of homicidal paroxysm: fewer splatters, more surgical skill, fewer splatters, more suffering, fewer splatters, more cruelty. It is essential to clean everything immediately after the performance, as if nothing happened and... next one!

Chilling the finale of this gothic tale seasoned with Emilian-Po Valley fogs that resurrect ancestral fears. Disturbing "bleedings" methodically and coordinately applied to the flesh directly from the most central zones of evil. The torment, the grin, the cruelty for its own sake: if the "sisters" catch you, you're screwed, Countess Bathory's got nothing on them...
"My colors, my colors"...