THE CHANGELING I guess nobody would've paid to see "The Switchling" Like with Rosemary's Baby, I was somewhat underwhelmed by oft-praised The Changeling the first time I saw it. Well, maybe not that much - Rosemary's Baby was SO underwhelming on the first viewing, I was pissed off! Damn pissed off, that a movie that had been hyped up all my life as a classic to fans and non-fans of the genre alike, didn't seem like half what I was hoping for. A second viewing of Rosemary's Baby, helped immeasurably by a better agenda of what to look for, warmed me to it considerably. My second viewing of The Changeling also helped endear this film to me more, though I have to admit, not much has changed about my viewing it this time, except perhaps that I caught it on late-night TV and it looks one hell of a lot better that way than on the VERY old, ratty VHS tape I'd first viewed it on a few years ago. Set in Seattle because for some reason, Canadian movies keep thinking they have to demonstrably set themselves in the U.S., The Changeling opens with a music professor (George C. Scott) witnessing the tragic, car-accident death of his wife and daughter. Devastated but wasting no time in trying to get on with his life, he accepts a teaching position at a Washington state university and moves into an old house kept in good condition by a local historical society. He settles into life, starts coming to terms with his grief, and even has a few sparks with Trish Van Devere. Oh, and the house is haunted, sending Scott to uncover and expose a 70-year-old secret. The Changeling is widely considered one of the best (often THE best) "quiet ghost story" of the past twenty-five years or so, and could probably have capitalized beautifully on the success of The Sixth Sense had it been re-released at the right time and promoted well. Or maybe it was, hell if I know. Quiet, is the word. Scott seems like an odd choice for such a "quiet" role, but he plays it beautifully, without getting into the trademark barking we all loved him for (well, I did). There's almost no gore, and the only violence is in a hallucinatory flashback (do car accidents count as violence?). Special effects are kept to a bare minimum. You might say it's exactly the opposite of the remake of The Haunting. The more you hated that movie, the more you might like this one. One thing I definitely appreciated here is that Scott's character doesn't waste time trying to rationalize the spiritual manifestation. I also liked that he tries to understand and communicate with the spirit from early on instead of cowering from it, even though I think the movie tips its hand too early as to whether it wants to be talked to. Still, there are some things about this movie which put me off during my first viewing, and continue to do so. It's a very moody film, but it doesn't start actually turning screws on you until the séance scene, which is over halfway through, if I remember correctly. Cool scene, though - it even managed to surprise me regarding the fate of that glass. I knew it'd break, I just expected that big cone to fall over and crush it. But the movie establishes too early that the spirit in the house isn't malevolent or dangerous (well, except to Lord Baltar, who enters late in the film threatening to sic the Cylons on Scott). Even though most viewers would already know that the house is haunted by the time they get this one to the rental counter, it would've been nice to have stuck a little longer with the possibility that it's haunted in a BAD way. And once that's established, I found the scene where Van Devere is chased around by a wheelchair silly to the point of being ridiculous. Despite a fairly generous budget for this sort of thing, at the time, in Canada, it still kinda looks like a TV movie, but director Peter Medak keeps it all together anyway, and it never stops being effective, atmospheric and involving. Seventeen years later, he went on to direct Species II. I mean...augh! The Changeling pretty much swept the Genie awards (Canadian film awards) that year, as movies often seem to do at the Genies, possibly because there isn't often much competition beyond one heads-n'-shoulders frontrunner. While I can't really go nuts over this movie the way I'd hoped to, to say that this is a good movie that any fan of horror or ghost stories should definitely see would be a bit of an understatement. Unplug the phone and put a big "FUCK OFF!" sign on your front door; this is the kind of movie that suffers greatly when you're not seeing it in one sitting. And don't be disappointed that the title refers to something other than a shape-shifter. BACK TO THE C's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE