As I was watching this George C. Scott-starring horror movie, I kept thinking the female lead looked kinda familiar. I looked her up afterwards, and while the name Trish Van Devere didn’t ring any bells, I did learn she and Scott were married until his death in 1999 and had been for years prior to making The Changeling. This wasn’t even the only time they’d worked on a movie together, but I don’t really recognize anything on her filmography. So, I’m not sure why she looked familiar to me at all, but I generally am surprised when I learn some actors have marriages that actually last.
I really didn’t have a better way to start this review than with that fairly innocuous trivia.
Composer John Russell (Scott) was on his way to a family vacation with his wife and young daughter when they got stuck in a snowbank. While John tries to call for help from a nearby payphone, his wife and daughter are killed when a truck loses control on the ice and hits them both. He moves to the other side of the country to get away from that, renting a large house that has been largely abandoned for years. There may be a reason for that: the house seems to be haunted. John, seeing a connection between the ghost and his dead daughter, starts to look into what happened with a little help from his real estate agent Claire (Van Devere).
By the by, while I don’t think John and Claire are playing off each other in anything like a romantic way, inappropriate given John’s history, I did think the actors had some good chemistry with each other.
However, there is more going on involving the house as John’s investigation, complete with psychics, recorded voices, and odd visions, slowly learns more about the house. What happened in this house? What does a powerful US Senator (Melvyn Douglas) have to do with it? And what does the title mean? Changelings are an idea from old fairy lore. That shouldn’t be associated with a ghost story, right?
Honestly, I enjoyed this one as it is the sort of horror I prefer: low on the blood and the bodycount and high on the psychological drama. I’m not sure why the lead character is a composer. There are moments early on when his knowledge of music plays into the movie, but it just seemed like an odd profession to give a character like this. Regardless, Scott plays the character as a dogged investigator, someone who knows the ghost probably can’t find a measure of peace until its mystery is solved, and Scott’s John is just the first person to come along with the desire to do so. It helps that John is in mourning for his lost daughter, creating a measure of sympathy for the ghostly child.
Oh, and when the title is explained, let’s just say it was perfect way to explain what happened and why the ghost and the Senator have any connection at all. In the meantime, this is a movie where an old child’s wheelchair may be the scariest thing in a house, and it’s more like a supernatural murder mystery than anything else. That’s really my sort of thing.
Grade: A-
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