When The Changeling (dir. Peter Medak) was released in 1980, films of
horror and terror were already ramping up towards the current state of affairs
where special effects and DGI dominate everything. In 1977 The
Exorcist had set this trend in motion, though its special effects were mainly
conventional. The Changeling is a much lower key affair. Its ghost rarely appears, at least at first. Mostly, he makes himself known by various
noises, by a bouncing ball, and in a recording made during a séance. Suspenseful music alerts us to the presence
of the supernatural. In fact, by modern
standards, the music may be overplayed in the film.
George C. Scott plays John
Russell, a composer whose wife and daughter have been killed in an
accident. He moves across the country to
make a new start and is convinced to rent an “old” and “historical” house. Both those words should have warned Russell,
and the audience, that hauntings are afoot.
Old houses are almost a necessity in films about ghosts (the 1980 film The Shining employs an old hotel). One wonders exactly why Russell would want to
live alone in an old four-story mansion, why he needs so much room, how he can
afford the rent. But he does move in, and strange occurrences begin: an unseen
finger presses a piano key, loud thumping noises occur every morning at 6, a
ball that belonged to Russell’s dead daughter bumps down the stairs. And then, of course, there is a boarded-up
room on the top floor. Russell and his real estate agent, Claire Norman (Trish Van
Devere) research the past of the house and ghost and the film develops from
there.
The Changeling uses the stock conventions of ghost movies deftly if
melodramatically. Your hackles do rise.
There are numerous moments of suspense and fright produced by the conventional skills
with which the film is made. But the age
of the film shows, a fact I hesitate to state. The portrayal of Claire Norman
in particular seems dated. Perhaps in
the tradition of Hitchcock and his haute de couture leading actresses, Van
Devere seems fashionably attired in every scene. She becomes increasingly histrionic as
supernatural events mount, almost a basket case at points, though Scott’s John
Russell often seems equally affected. This despite the efforts of the film to
show Claire as a modern woman with her own job and purpose.
Towards the end, the subtle
indirectness that made the first half of the film effective gives way to things
running amuck—a mysterious car crash in which a detective dies, doors slamming
shut, a wheelchair that chases Norman down the stairs, apoplexy, and a huge
fire.
When I saw the film in 1980, I
was already haunted. My wife was
pregnant with our first child. We were eagerly
anticipating his arrival. He appeared in dreams and spoke to me, and I woke
believing the dreams had been real. I
associated the film’s ghostly child with my own child, who was still in
utero. A spooky conflation of opposites,
I know. My child, my oldest son, is alive now, and 38 years old. My youngest
son watched this film with me and had no patience for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment