This is one of those very few ghost movies that manages to get everything right. This isn’t really that surprising; the 70s/early 80s was the height of talent working in supernaturally themed films in America. I’m not sure why this particular era was so good for horror films, but it produced too many highlights of the genre to overlook the coincidence.
One of the reasons the film works so well is it keeps the bulk of the hauntings psychological. Much of the film revolves around George C. Scott as a composer whose wife and child recently died reacting to things only he can hear or see. The question is raised as to whether this is really happening or if it’s all in his head. It’s not until he confides in others that the hauntings manifest in an overt enough manner to be beyond question.
Cleverly, the film largely avoids metaphor or symbolism in its use of a haunted house. A parallel is drawn between Scott’s recent loss of a child and the dead child who haunts his house, but there’s no “grieving process” going on here. Instead, the haunting is cast not as an emotional or spiritual problem, but as a mystery. The film is essentially a detective story, with the victim providing supernatural clues as to his identity and the motive for his murder. As the extent of the mystery widens, eventually reaching high political stakes, the power and extent of the haunting increases as well, until the secrets of the past reach an apocalyptic conclusion in the present. Interestingly for the genre, the film also presages the contemporary motif in ghost and haunting stories that, in general, helping a ghost is ultimately the wrong thing to do.
Entries (RSS)
Thanks for spotlighting this movie. As a huge fan of ghost stories, The Changeling remains one of my all-time favorites for the reasons you pointed out. And I agree with the psychological factor; if anything, that’s the main draw that ghost stories have for me. Not violence or gore or the thousand and one creative ways that people can be butchered by mutants, zombies, vampires, ghouls, what have you…hauntings are always very psychological. Unless, of course, we’re referring to more recent interpretations of ghosts, which are really no different from slasher ghoul types.
Dorian,
I watched this not long ago with the wife and kid and it’s as effective as it was thirty years ago. Scared the shit out of my daughter…and you’re absolutely right about not making it explicitly about GCS’s grieving process, just leaving it out there bleeding for the audience to sense.
Scott P.
You never look at a rubber ball the same again.