SCREAM YOUR ENTHUSIASM (19)

By: Heather Quinlan
December 2, 2024

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of favorite horror movies. Series edited by Heather Quinlan.

THE CHANGELING | d. PETER MEDAK | 1980

One of the most terrifying moments I’ve seen in a horror movie is a ball bouncing down the stairs. That’s the brilliance of 1980’s The Changeling. Although it stars LOUD George C. Scott, The Changeling also has several quiet scenes that are just as dramatic.

Scott plays a music professor who’s moved across the country to escape the metaphorical ghosts of his recently-deceased wife and daughter… except now he’s about to be confronted by a real one.

I’ve always been in love with horror movies. When I was four I asked my parents if we could see Alien. (The answer was “no” but at least Tourist Trap was always on TV.) I first saw The Changeling when I was 11ish — it isn’t the most frightening movie ever, but here I am writing about it nearly 40 years later. Perhaps “most frightening” doesn’t necessarily mean “best”?

Director Peter Medak was able to reign in Scott quite a bit — as with Al Pacino, a little hollering goes a long way. And there is hollering. But there’s also a vulnerability and sorrow that comes through in Scott’s performance as Prof. John Russell. His Bert Gordon never shed a tear. Patton definitely didn’t. But John Russell does, greeting one bright morning with tortured sobs until suddenly he hears BANG… BANG… BANG in the walls. When he gets a plumber to check, Russell’s given that old saw, “It’s an old house.” (Imagine if the plumber had taken out a flashlight, looked at the pipes, and said, “Yep, you’ve got ghosts.”)

Despite what the plumber says, The Changeling is indeed a haunted house story, with the main character haunted as well. When Russell decides to start moving on with his life, he tosses his daughter Kathy’s red bouncing ball into a river… only to return home and see it bouncing down the stairs and landing at his feet. Someone’s got his attention alright. But who? Is it Kathy? Or Cora, a girl who died nearby from an accident decades earlier? Or is it someone else?

The imposing house that Russell rented belongs to the local historical society, and was the childhood home of current Sen. Joseph Carmichael. Detective work involving dusty files, microfilm, and a seance ensues, where Russell is confronted with the truth that yep, he’s got ghosts. Or more precisely, a ghost, a little boy named Joseph — the “someone else” in our list of phantom suspects. Joseph is connected to Sen. Joseph Carmichael, and though only a child, has a vengeful spirit that borders on demonic. So what’s a grieving music professor dealing with his own death issues supposed to do?

There are two other George C. Scott works I can think of that contain the supernatural: 1985’s TV movie A Christmas Carol, which I think is the novella’s best adaptation, and 1991’s Exorcist III, which was doomed by its name but has the most terrifying scene ever put to film. (Along with a dream sequence featuring Fabio and the New York Knicks’ Patrick Ewing dressed as angels.) The Changeling is kind of a spiritual cousin to A Christmas Carol — John Russell is no Ebeneezer Scrooge, but they both need a ghost (or ghosts) to help them exorcise their demons. And in Russell’s case, the ghost needs him too. Though it’s not quite that heartwarming. This ghost commands him. Patton would’ve been proud.

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SCREAM YOUR ENTHUSIASM (19)

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