1980 horror mystery
Rating: 15/20
Plot: Following a tragic accident, a composer decides to live in a house that is way too big for him. He's immediately haunted by a ghost.
Less a horror movie and more like a creepy but classy mystery, The Changeling works mostly because it's got a great house. There's just something about a camera moving slowly through a big house with just the right music. This really is a lot of house for one guy, even a guy like George C. Scott, but that just gives it more angles, more shadows. There are beautiful shots of a staircase where, Escher-like, you have trouble figuring out if you're looking up or down. A lot of my favorite horror movies are the kinds that would give architects hard-ons. This movie certainly looks better than it sounds. The sound effects always feel a little random, and it's hard to tell what the protagonist is hearing and what is just there for us. Scott, as that protagonist, is good, except (or especially?) when he looks a little too much like Bob Uecker. His deliver of "God damn son of a bitch!" is so terrifically delivered, however, that it doesn't matter which former baseball catcher he resembles.
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