I’m not a huge fan of haunted house movies, but this one is pretty good. I don’t believe it’s a classic like many of you claim, just a well acted supernatural thriller done with a great deal of style and care.
The Hungarian-born, England-based director Peter Medak has been quite prolific over the years, with a varied output that includes THE RULING CLASS (1972), THE KRAYS (1990), LET HIM HAVE IT (1991), ROMEO IS BLEEDING (1993) and SPECIES II (1998). Medak directed 1979’s THE CHANGELING after a string of box office flops, telling one interviewer that the film, initially conceived as a quickie grade-B effort, was “all the work I can get”.
1979 also marked a low point for the late George C. Scott, the once-distinguished headliner of classics like DR. STRANGELOVE and PATTON (for which he infamously refused to accept the Best Actor Oscar he won). In Scott’s later years his notoriously tempestuous personality and erratic choice of films, most notably his disastrous self-financed 1974 directorial effort THE SAVAGE IS LOOSE, meant he closed out his career appearing in undistinguished genre fare like FIRESTARTER, THE EXORCIST III and MALICE. On THE CHANGELING, however, both he and Peter Medak gave their all, which is fully evident in the finished product.
The film is also notable as one of several collaborations between George C. Scott and actress Trish Van DeVere (playing his love interest), who married in 1972 and remained so until Scott’s 1999 demise.
John, a distraught widower trying to get over the shocking deaths of his wife and young son, has just moved into a luxurious Seattle house thought by locals to be haunted. He disbelieves the claims at first, but soon becomes convinced by the loud banging he hears each night. He gets some local spiritualists to hold a séance, and they uncover evidence of an unquiet spirit residing in the house named Joseph, who as a child was drowned in a bathtub seventy years earlier by his father. John researches the lives of the house’s previous inhabitants and discovers it was occupied for many years by the Carmichaels, a wealthy clan whose offspring is now a high-powered senator. John somehow deduces that Joseph, the ghost loose in the house, was the actual offspring, but was killed by his father, who then replaced him with another kid—a changeling.
John tries to confront Senator Carmichael directly with his knowledge but is blown off, and later has his house investigated by a police officer…who upon driving away is killed in a suspicious accident. Thinking the situation over, the senator calls a meeting with John, during which John’s newfound girlfriend Claire enters his house and is harassed by its ghostly inhabitant. The pissed-off Joseph then takes on Senator Carmichael directly and burns down the house—luckily John and Claire manage to escape in time.
The script, by Diana Maddox and genre specialist William Grey (HUMONGOUS, THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT), is serviceable at best, but Peter Medak helms with considerable skill, creating a compellingly subtle and atmospheric ghost story. He favors wide angle lenses, a preference that occasionally gets out of hand (resulting in distorted images that distract, even in straightforward dialogue scenes), but overall the visuals are strong and expressive. Medak also creates some good shock sequences, most memorably the sight of a dead child rising to the surface of a bathtub, and handles the special effects-packed climax with a fair amount of flair.
In the lead role George C. Scott reminds us why he was hailed as one of America’s finest actors, in a performance of considerable refinement and restraint (a rejoinder to those who think he spent the seventies and eighties recycling his PATTON role). He plays an uncomplicated nice guy, yet still manages to make the character of John into a fully-rounded and compelling individual whose exploits seem worth following.
Vital Statistics
THE CHANGELING
Chessman Park/Tiberius Film Productions
Director: Peter Medak
Producer: Joel B. Michaels, Garth H. Drabinsky
Screenplay: William Gray, Diana Maddox
Cinematography: John Coquillon
Editing: Lilla Pedersen
Cast: George C. Scott, Trish Van DeVere, Melvyn Douglas, John Colicos, Jean Marsh, Barry Morse, Madeleine Sherwood, Helen Burns, Frances Hyland, Ruth Springford, Eric Christmas, Roberta Maxwell, Bernard Behrens, James B. Douglas