Review Detail

Another laudable effort from The Scribbling Man. The Haunting for me has always been dragged down by Eleanor's anxious internal monologue. So it's interesting to see how the film works without it - as well as with it significantly minimized. The Scribbling Man did a very good job filling in the aural gaps where the internal monologue should be. That said, I feel he could have gone further with the visual cuts to eliminate the moments that hold on Eleanor as she's thinking out loud. At times, especially early on, it almost felt as though the movie was broken. This was the first time I've watched the film in a few years, so a lot of the beats felt fresh to me, but it was clear when these pauses for voice over were happening, and unfortunately they took me out of the film.

Fortunately though, there's track 2, which I feel is the real success here. Track 2 offers enough internal monologue to fill these moments without overdoing it the way the original film does. Seriously, the strongest impressions I have thinking back to watching The Haunting over the years are the ghost banging and the annoying voice over. So with track 2, I now have a version to replace the original. Visual editing is completely seamless here. Reading the cutlist, I was surprised at how much was actually tweaked because all of it went unnoticed both times I watched the film. It just moved at an agreeable clip for a 60's film. I really appreciate The Scribbling Man's attention to detail in whittling away 5 minutes from the film.

The Implicit Cut experiment was a very worthy endeavor and I encourage you to give track 1 a chance. Meanwhile, I'm going to remux the file and bump track 2 up to the top spot ;)