The Changeling (film)

Plot

John Russell, a New York City composer, is vacationing with his wife and daughter when their car becomes stuck in snow. While he approaches a roadside phone booth, an oncoming truck is knocked off its path and strikes and kills his wife and daughter. Grief-stricken, he moves to Seattle and rents a mansion from Claire Norman, an agent of a local historical society, who tells him the property has been vacant for twelve years. Soon after moving in, John experiences unexplained phenomena: a loud banging each morning, all water taps turned on, and the apparition of a drowned boy in a bathtub.

A red stained-glass windowpane shatters, and he discovers a locked, boarded-up door in a closet leading to a hidden attic bedroom. He finds a music box that plays the same piano tune he has just recorded. John and Claire investigate the house's history, initially believing the ghost is a young girl killed in a 1909 traffic accident. During a seance, John hears the spirit's voice on audio equipment, calling himself Joseph Carmichael.

John learns that Joseph Carmichael was a crippled six-year-old murdered in 1906 by his father Richard to prevent him from inheriting a fortune at age 21. Richard replaced the boy with one from an orphanage and spirited him to Europe, later returning with him at age 18 claiming he was cured. The grown Joseph Carmichael is now a prominent U.S. Senator and a major patron of the historical society that owns the house where the murder occurred.

Production

The screenplay for The Changeling draws from events that Russell Hunter, a playwright and composer, said he lived through in the 1960s at the Henry Treat Rogers mansion in Denver’s Cheesman Park. According to Hunter, after strange occurrences in the house, he uncovered a hidden room containing a journal from a century earlier. It told of a disabled boy kept isolated by his parents, who wanted to take a $70 million inheritance meant for him from wealthy relatives.

Hunter claimed a séance led the spirit of the boy to guide him to another house, where human remains and a gold medallion with the boy’s name were found. The story’s truth has been doubted: the Denver Public Library has no record of Hunter living at the mansion, and historian Phil Goodstein pointed out that no Denver family had a $70 million fortune between the late 1800s and early 1900s. Henry Treat Rogers, a wealthy attorney, had no children, and earlier residents of the mansion are unrecorded.

The building was torn down in the 1980s for a high-rise apartment. The film’s budget came from selling $25,000 shares to 264 investors, who each later earned $9,229 in profit. It was one of nine movies shot in British Columbia in the late 1970s, taking advantage of provincial tax shelters. George C. Scott played John Russell, with his wife Trish Van Devere as Claire Norman.

Peter Medak became the third director after Donald Cammell and Tony Richardson left over creative differences, leaving him just a month for script rewrites and set building. Principal photography started on December 4, 1978. Though the story is set in Seattle, most filming took place in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, with exceptions like New York City location shots and establishing views of Seattle landmarks.

Reception

The Changeling grossed $12 million worldwide against its $6.6 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing Canadian production of 1980 and earning the Golden Reel Award at the 2nd Genie Awards. Edwin Miller of Seventeen called it a visually classy chiller aided by stunning film locations. Richard Grenier of Cosmopolitan praised Medak's direction and said Scott gave the story its spine-tingling impact, deeming it the best horror film of the year.

Variety noted it as a superior haunted house thriller. Ed Blank of the Pittsburgh Press called it an unexceptional but diverting horror story with better-than-average performers. Florida Today praised it as the best ghost story of the year, likening it to The Innocents. The Morning News noted it as a good ghost story, praising Scott's demonic energy and Melvyn Douglas's performance.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was more mixed, writing that while the film had technical requirements and interesting ideas, it lacked a sense of awful things about to happen, and Scott made the hero too rational. Fiona Ferguson of Time Out criticized the plot's leaps in logic. The Arizona Republics Michael Maza called it a routine picture with formulaic eerie noises and unbelievable coincidences. Retrospective reviews have been positive; Film 4 noted it as a minor classic and underrated member of the haunted house movie genre.

Related works

In 1987, Italian filmmaker Lamberto Bava directed Until Death, a TV movie that was sold as a sequel on home video despite having no story link to the original film. A new version was planned in 2018 by Cornerstone Films and X Filme, with producer Joel B. Michaels returning. Mark Steven Johnson was set to write and direct, moving the story to Venice, Italy. Two years later, Anders Engström took over, shifting the setting to Ireland.

Screenwriter Tab Murphy, who had worked with Michaels on Last of the Dogmen, called the project a reimagining rather than a remake. He promised a three-page outline but delivered 33 pages. Cornerstone presented the film at that year's Marché du Film.

Did You Know?

• The film ranked no. 54 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments series.
• Director Martin Scorsese placed The Changeling on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.
• In 2024, Entertainment Weekly ranked The Changeling as the best haunted house film of all time.