Review Detail

With the Psychological Cut, The Scribbling Man has created a more immediate version of 'The Haunting'. He makes some decisions that I think the original filmmakers were a little hesitant to commit to. While the original version mostly follows Eleanor, it also wants to explain the house a little more. As the title suggests, 'The Psychological Cut' commits to the idea that all of this stems from Eleanor, whether she's imagining everything around her, or is manifesting The Haunting herself. This is brought up in the original version, but the filmmakers dilute that idea with other suggestions for the source of The Haunting.

That said, I don't know if this tops The Scribbling Man's 'Implicit Cut' of 'The Haunting' - which I feel DOES top the original version of the film simply by toning down the inner monologue and making a few nips and tucks. Still trying to figure out why, because so much works here. I don't think the original intro is missed in this edit, but ultimately I think I prefer it for how it establishes the mood a bit more. Scrib's new ending in 'The Psychological Cut' also works well. It's nothing drastic, and could have probably fit in the original film just fine.

Having compared both audio tracks, I feel this probably works best with the minimal internal monologue as it helps tell the story along. As I said in my review of 'The Implicit Cut', I've wondered for years how 'The Haunting' would function without all the inner monologue, and finally The Scribbling Man has shown us by providing multiple audio tracks (and now, multiple edits) to compare. Maybe the monologue can't quite be completely extracted from the film, but a lot can be toned down. A very commendable job.