Horror Corner: “The Changeling”

Here at The Rathaus, we, as in Tricia and Carter, have an admittedly geeky tradition – for the entire month of October, just to set mood for Halloween, we regularly watch a horror film at least one of us (usually Tricia) has never seen before. Over the past few years we’ve made it through most of the mainstream must-see horror films – like Friday the 13th, Halloween, The Exorcist, Hellraiser, An American Werewolf in London, The Thing, Rosemary’s Baby, The Wicker Man, Silence of the Lambs and The Shining – and have now moved on to examining the lesser known gems of a very diverse genre.

And because Tricia is a verifiable scaredy cat – incapable of watching a horror movie of any kind without hiding her eyes at least once – and Carter is grizzled veteran of the grotesque – who’s seen Audition more than once and has watched parts of Men Behind the Sun – our reviews will be a solid assessment of just how frightening each film is. So in hopes of introducing all of you to some spine-chilling, blood-curling and maybe even scream-worthy movies over the next month, we present the first installment our horror film extravaganza 2010. Feel free to leave us any suggestions in the comments section or through our twitter and facebook.

First up, The Changeling, 1980

It was the perfect family vacation for composer John Russell (George C. Scott) and his family when a freak automobile accident claims the lives of his wife and daughter. Consumed by grief, John, at the request of friends, rents an old turn of the century house. Mammoth in size, the house seems all the room that John needs to write music and reflect. He does not realize that he is not alone in the house. He shares it with the spirit of a murdered child who has homed in on John’s despair and uses him to uncover decades of silence and deceit. With the help of Claire Norman, the one who aided John in procuring the house, they race to find the answers and soon learn that a devious and very powerful man guards them.(IMDB)

Watch the trailer here

Carter’s take: George C. Scott delivers a solid performance as John Russell in this haunted house thriller. The first half of the movie uses many of the conventions you might expect in this type of horror film – creepy noises, plenty of gloomy passageways and some eerie references to Russell’s dead child – none of which were particularly effective for me. Only after Russell participates in a seance with a spooky medium are the scares, intrigue and action finally ramped up. But even at its peak The Changeling never had my pulse racing and the ending was far too predictable. There were some interesting visuals of the ghost that horror buffs might find interesting because of the similarities to The Ring.

Tricia’s take: This was our first scary movie of the season so I was of course scared out of my wits. I’m totally into 1980 right now (fashion, film, etc) so when Carter presented me with the list of horror flicks to choose from, I jumped on The Changeling because I figured it would be quite a bit more campy, and therefore less scary, than the rest. I’ll admit some of the action did look a bit cheesy, but that did not detract me from believing in the ghost of the murdered child. And although I laid in bed quite a while that night listening for any out of the ordinary sounds, I’d have to agree with Carter, it wasn’t that scary as most of what has stuck with me from the film was the fashion (definitely a good reference point for some fall fashion inspiration, and I die for Claire’s winter hat).