Bloody October: The Changeling

LAST NIGHT: THE CHANGELING (1980)

I’m a huge fan of haunted house movies, but I had never seen or even heard of this one until some good people over at Man, I Love Films recommended it.  I was pleased to discover that it’s a cut above many scary movies; in fact, it ranks right up there with The Haunting and The Shining.

George C. Scott is John Russell, a composer who recently lost his wife and daughter and is having difficulty getting over it.  So he moves from NYC to Seattle and rents a huge Victorian mansion; because a single man in the throes of grief should definitely live alone in a massive house.  Things begin to go bump in the night, prompting Russell to research into the history of the house, only to discover freaky goings-on, a boarded up attic and a little kid’s wheelchair that moves on its own.  I won’t go into more details, but it gets pretty scary.

The Changeling is very much in the vein of del Toro’s The Orphanage – the haunted house is not exactly malign, but angry, and with good reason. Rather than running screaming into the night, Russell becomes convinced that the ghost is trying to get in touch with him, to solve the mystery of who or what it is and why it isn’t at rest.  The director Peter Medak gives us plenty of scares, but they’re not over the top – a piano playing by itself, an unidentified thumping, that rolling wheelchair.  It’s a sad, affecting film, not just a scary one.  Highly recommended by this first time viewer.

Author: Lauren

Lauren Humphries-Brooks is a writer, editor, and media journalist. She holds a Master’s degree in Cinema Studies from New York University, and in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. She regularly contributes to film and pop culture websites, and has written extensively on Classical Hollywood, British horror films, and the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres. She currently works as a freelance copyeditor and proofreader. View all posts by Lauren