The Changeling
Tuesday May 7, 2013 in 80s cinema | horror
Any casual internet search will return various lists of the best haunted house films. Evergreen favourites such as The Haunting and The Innocents always appear. There is also a lesser known film that features regularly, the 1980 film The Changeling starring George C. Scott.
In The Changeling Scott plays a composer called John Russell who moves from New York to Seattle following the death of his wife and child. He rents a large, dark, cobwebby mansion and soon realises this is asking for trouble when he encounters a spectral presence. Haunted by the ghost of a child, who manifests itself in the form of knocking and shattered glass, Russell slowly pieces together a murder from the past that impacts on the life of a wealthy senator (Mervyn Douglas).
Ultimately the resolution is unsatisfying, involving a weird scene between Scott and Douglas, but the film is worth catching for its careful, eerie pace and the interesting Seattle location work.
The Changeling is also memorable for one of the best seance scenes I’ve seen in cinema, and the overall feeling of the film seems very familiar in today’s crowded market of dark and dusty spooky house films – most memorably I suppose in the likes of Sinister.