ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966) Blu-ray Review

One Million Years B.C. (1966) d. Don Chaffey (UK) (100 min)

“This is a story of long, long ago, when the world was just beginning. A young world, a world early in the morning of time. A hard, unfriendly world. Creatures who sit and wait. Creatures who must kill to live. And Man, superior to the creatures only in his cunning. There are not many men yet. Just a few tribes scattered across the wilderness. Never venturing far, unaware that other tribes exist even. Too busy with their own lives to be curious. Too frightened of the unknown to wander. Their laws are simple: the strong take everything. This is Akhoba, leader of the Rock Tribe... And these are his sons, Sakana and Tumak. There is no love loss between them. And that is our story.”

THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS (1976) Movie Review

The House with Laughing Windows (1976) d. Pupa Avati (Italy) (110 min)

Art historian and restoration specialist Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) is summoned to a rural Italian town to restore a grotesque fresco (grotesquo?) depicting the death of St. Sebastian, shown in horrible torment with daggers skewering his naked body. When his friend Antonio (Giulio Pizzirani), who recommended him for the job, is found dead on the cobblestones outside his apartment, the police quickly deem it a suicide, ignoring Stefano’s claims that a shadowy figure was lurking on the balcony above. Through encounters with the town’s bizarre locals, Stefano learns more about the mystery surrounding the fresco’s artist, Legnani, dubbed the “Painter of Agony,” as well as Legnani’s equally twisted sisters who helped him procure unwilling subjects and torture them while he captured their anguished expressions on canvas.