I have just seem the 99 minute version in French on YouTube and have only just realised that the 119 version of this film in Flemish is the complete one to see; a directors cut. I am not sure I want to see this as I found ' Malpertuis ' to be a nauseating experience coming out of a disturbed place that I wish I had not entered. The story itself is based around an enforced entrapment in a house called ' Malpertuis ' and after the highlight of the film, Orson Welles at his best, disappears there is a slow descent into very graphic horror typical of a lot of 1970's films. Is the house real or is it an entrapment in a disturbed young man's mind ? I will give no spoilers but it is pretty clear at the end what the house actually is. I would advise anyone who has had a psychiatric illness not to go near this ( for me ) repulsive film. The music by Georges Delerue is excellent but other than Welles I found the acting to be mediocre. I know it has affected my own mind badly, and some of the images are beautiful and it is finely shot, but it is cruelly sensationalist and that is why I depart from those who consider it a masterpiece. I dislike films and there were many of them in the 1970's that had to go, or wanted to go to extremes so as to get audiences in. I feel as mentally confused as the various versions that have and perhaps still are circulating.
Review of The Legend of Doom House
