Rating: R
Genre:
Thriller
Release Date: 09/12/2000
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DS
Run Time: 115 Minutes
Flags: Violence, Adult Situations
Distributor/Studio: HBO Home Video
Peter Medak's
The Changeling is among a handful of films, including
The Haunting (1963),
Ghost Story (1981), and
Lady in White (1988), that have successfully recreated the intimate, drawing-room atmosphere of
supernatural horror fiction. After his wife and daughter are killed in a snowbound car accident,
classical composer
John Russell (
George C. Scott) relocates from New York to Seattle to teach at his alma mater. Looking for a quiet place to rest and continue writing music, he is referred
Claire Norman (
Trish Van Devere) at the Seattle Historical Preservation Society.
Claire shows
John a large, sparsely furnished estate in the outlying countryside. He takes the house, appreciating its remoteness and the solitude it might afford, and diverts himself by renovating and settling in. He even starts to compose, putting aside his older work in favor of a new, sentimental piece for the piano. It is not long, however, before he begins having nightmares about the accident that killed his wife and daughter. Possibly because of this trauma, he is open to communications from the house's ghostly occupants. Pursuing a loud, repetitive pounding noise in an upper room, he stumbles on the apparition of a young boy drowning in a tub. Working together with
Claire,
John discovers frightening parallels between this vision and buried events from the house's past.
Horror writer
M.R. James once said that his goal as a writer was to make the reader feel "pleasantly uncomfortable." Those looking for a similar experience in movies will appreciate
The Changeling as a gem in the
horror genre.
~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide
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