Toro adores Pupi Avati and you should too. Less famous than his Italian brethren Bava, Argento and Fulci, Avati makes horror films that possess a fragile beauty yet pulse with insidious tension.

The House With Laughing Windows is his masterpiece. Art restorer Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) visits a sleepy village to touch up a fresco depicting the slaughter of St. Sebastian... only for events to play out like some sort of Italian Wicker Man, the cruel horrors cavorting in brilliant sunlight. (See also Avati’s bizarre 1983 zombie film, Zeder.)

Argh! The freaky, bloody ending. WTF?!

Remake rights: Martyrs’ Pascal Laugier. He cherishes Picnic At Hanging Rock, a film House shares much in common with.

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Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders (1970)

A Czech New Wave vampire movie?

Valerieout there who have never heard of Argento’s movies, let alone seen them.

For many more, their acquaintance begins and ends with Suspiria.

The second of the ‘Three Mothers Trilogy’ – bracketed by Suspiria (1977) and Mother Of Tears (2007) – Inferno is set in New York as student Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle) discovers a book telling of three witchy mothers: Sighs, Darkness and Tears.

Darkness, it transpires, dwells in the neo- Gothic mansion where Rose is living, and no sooner does she relay this creepy information to her brother in Rome than she disappears...

Written by Argento as he holed up in a Central Park hotel suffering from a repeat bout of hepatitis, Inferno started shooting on 21 May 1979.

The director clashed with studio 20th Century Fox throughout the 14-week shoot