Evokes the confrontational intimacy of a minimalist theatre.

How did you die, Joseph? The Changeling is directed by Peter Medak and co-written by Russell Hunter, William Gray and Diana Maddox. It stars George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas, John Colicos and Jean Marsh. Plot finds Scott as John Russell, a music composer whose life is shattered when an accident kills both his wife and young daughter. Relocating to Seattle, Russell rents a large Gothic style mansion from which to bury himself in his work. But he soon discovers he is not alone in the house, there is a ghost here and it desperately wants his help with something... Not a teenager or a scantily clad bad actress in sight here, for this is a traditional haunted house spooker for the adults, one that has a distressing mystery at its core that's just aching to be solved. Chief writer Russell Hunter has based much of the film on an incidents that happened to him in real life when he moved into a house in Denver. If you believe him or not is not really the point, because it does not take away from just how well executed The Changeling is, both as a scary movie and a well thought out drama. There's limited characters in the narrative, thus keeping the film free from filler and the clumsy character set-ups that mar so many horror films these days. It's also worth noting that it doesn't suffer from dating either, as Nicole Kidman starrer The Others proved 21 years later,…

_**George C. Scott grapples with a haunted house**_ A grieving composer (Scott) rents a mansion in Seattle that’s been unoccupied for a dozen years and starts a relationship with the Historical Society agent who offered it to him (Trish Van Devere). Unfortunately, the manor has a shameful history and weird things start happening. "The Changeling" (1980) is haunted house horror in the tradition of "The Legend of Hell House" (1973), "The Evil" (1978) and "The Amityville Horror" (1979). While it's not as good as "Amityville Horror," it's pretty much on par with "Legend of Hell House" and “The Evil” and would influence future ghostly flicks, like "The Ring" (2002). The writer of the book and co-scripter, Russell Hunter, claimed the story is based on his experiences while living in the Henry Treat Rogers mansion in the Cheesman Park neighborhood of Denver in the late ’60s. For me, the apparition is accorded too much power by the scriptwriters in the second half and this provokes a “Yeah, right” response rather than scares or awes. A good example is setting a house on fire at will. Why Sure! Trish, by the way, was Scott’s wife from 1972 until his passing in 1999. The film runs 1 hour, 47 minutes, and was shot in the Vancouver area, Seattle, and New York City (Lincoln Center), with one scene done in Toronto. GRADE: B-/C+

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