THE CHANGELING @ 45

After losing his wife and daughter in a horror crash, composer John Russell must find his way to living through massive grief. He emerges from mourning, moving to a new city and job teaching composition at the local Conservatory. He lands well, finding an isolated mansion to move into for the kind of quiet that allows concentration. But that's not how these stories play out. Things move by themselves. Sounds occur when and where they shouldn't. Curious, and almost glad of the distraction, John goes exploring and finds a walled up room with a lot of dust and webs and a child's wheelchair. There's work to be done.

This was an original screenplay, based on a claimed genuine haunting. Off centre U.K. directors Tony Richardson and Donald Cammell were early choices but both bailed for creative differences. By the time Peter Medak got the megaphone, the script had been through rewrites and he added some of his own. In a very real sense, this tale of failed adoptions might have to do with the film being counterproductively uneven. While it's a favourite to put on on a rainy afternoon for its engaging eeriness, it always gets to a point where I feel like getting up for a break.

That's not to say it ever really drags. The Changeling feels draggy over the course of its reasonable hundred minutes because, as good as he is to watch, George C. Scott's John Russell is so blustery and pragmatic that he never seems to be under threat. Add a plot convolution that plods when it should accelerate and you have something that does actually feel like a story fixed with patches rather than drafted anew as a fluent single treatment.

Medak is no slouch when it comes to effective film making, the chills here as good as you'll find in anything of its era, but he can appear to lose sight of the aerial view of his projects. If you read up on The Ruling Class and that is stars a young and feisty Peter O'Toole you might hurry to it but by the second of its two and half hours you might start cherry picking the good bits of what should have been a  ninety minute satire at the most. Similarly frustrating is the '90s entry Romeo is Bleeding which should have been a sure fire bad cop story in the era of Pulp Fiction and Bad Lieutenant but ends up as cinematic porridge. The Changeling is not as bungled as either of those as it does deliver on its promises as a complicated ghost story, it's just that we could lose about fifteen minutes of transitional or lifestyle scenes (they date it stylistically, anyway, and give it the feel of being a filmed Playboy ad for pipe tobacco). 

It is also not helped by its orchestral score which begins with an enjoyable uncanny piano and strings theme but soon blands out into aural treacle. This is after the likes of Jerry Goldsmith's terrifying score for the Omen and John Carpenter's unsettling piano and synth music for Halloween. It gives the film the feel of a luxury budget production but that's really not always what you want in a horror movie.

But horror movie it is and is quite readily regarded as a classic of its kind. I might question that last point but I do have to admit that the goods it brings when it needs to (that séance scene!) and those moments of development that suggest that the real darkness is not in the haunted house alone, are gripping. You might notice that the worst of my criticisms here are kind of the opposite of faint praise, that my sticking points are quite likely local to me. Perhaps I should just say that, while I would watch something like The Haunting (1963) at the drop of a hat but think about revisiting The Changeling it might be more indicative of its place in my estimation. I love The Haunting. I respect The Changeling.

Viewing notes: I watched my lovely 4K release of this which came with a BD and a CD soundtrack album. This is not currently available to rent or buy in Australia. If you were to travel back to the days of VHS shops you'd be able to get a copy on a cheaper weekly rate. Not everything had got better.

Top 13 horrors for Halloween

Okay, as this is an occasion for my favourite film genre I'm doing two unusual things in my tops lists: there are more titles and Eraserhead isn't one of them.

What's the same is that this is not an attempt at a definitive list. Horror is my favourite genre and I like far more than thirteen. I left the inclusion entirely up to what I could think of at the time. This would almost certainly change if I thought about it again this time next week. So, sorry if your favourites aren't here, a lot of my own aren't either.

Halloween: This bloodless coup of a film was the most profitable independent American film until The Blair Witch Project. Through the kill scenes and an atmosphere of undiluted and understated creepiness there is a powerful arc of nerd girl Laurie finding her courage and standing up to the monster. It was this where the masked killing machine who just keeps coming back originated. Original still best. Oh, and one of the best realised music scores for any film in any genre, by director Carpenter himself.

Dark Water: Shivery ghost tale remembers that the best of them include a tragedy at their centre. The convergence of this and the haunting results in a powerful and heartrending climax. Wash this down with a creepy and crushing coda and you have the logical end to the J-horror genre.

 

 
The Blair Witch Project: Campfire tale as cinema verite. Three students try and make a film about a witch in the woods and either fall under her control or get literally scared out of their wits. Not the first found footage film but still the most effective.





Ringu: The man who ended J-horror also began it with this tale of a curse and race against time. Like Dark Water this is also the story of a mother's bond with her child and the rediscovery of mutual respect between a woman and her estranged husband. Climax still freezes me and it's still better than the exponentially higher budgeted American re-bloat.





Suspiria: Giallo maestro Dario Argento's apex drives to the heart of why our nightmares scare us (we have no control over them) and serves one up with frozen blues and thick blood reds. Some of the most tightening murder scenes you'll see and a music score on a par with Halloween.


Martyrs: Outside of Asia contemporary horror has fallen to cliche and uninterestingly slick digital effects but this French/Canadian entry not only gives us gore that is painful to the eye but concepts that make us feel ashamed to be alive. The really nasty stuff has less gore but the ideas behind it are petrifying.




The Haunting: Citizen Kane alumnus Robert Wise made one of the finest haunted house movies of all time with this adaptation of a popular novel. Some still impressive special effects, almost three dimensional lighting design support a very very sad central story. Could watch this on a weekly basis.


The Exorcist: A story of doubt, faith and mother and daughter. You don't need to be religious to get into this one anymore than you need to believe in ghosts to dig The Haunting. As a girl goes through severe changes in mind and body her famous and inevitably neglectful mother is drawn to attention. The father who is only suggested by the gaps in an international phone call has been absent for years. As the tumult within the girl explodes into freakish violence the priests are called in. One is a skeptic, grieving for his recently deceased mother and the other is an old stager who has met this demon before. A mix of tough seventies drama and supernatural pyrotechnics, The Ex remains a wonder of the medium. Try to find the original cut as the "version you've never seen" aka the director's cut just adds bloat and removes power.

Night of the Living Dead: Throw out the magic and ritual of the traditional zombie story and all you have is the dead come back to life. All? Romero's fable of fate, made for the shoe polish budget of a contemporary quirky indy gets everything it tries for right.

The Changeling: Effectively eerie haunted house film builds to a conclusion of real dread. Atmosphere and strong performances lift this already fine story into the ether.






Kairo: Would you like to meet a ghost? So asks the website visited by most of the characters in this apocalyptic tale. No you wouldn't, is the correct answer, not if they're anything like the ones here. A chaos of mass loneliness, Kairo (or Pulse or Circuit as it's variously known in English) was once beautifully described as The Omega Man as directed by Tarkovsky. Yup!

Prince of Darkness: Dismissed even by Carpenter fans my near favourite JC film has ideas worthy of its chief inspirator Nigel Kneale and a human diminishing concept at its centre AND another great music score by Johnno himself. I can watch this just for the atmosphere but love the rest of it too much.




The Cabinet of Dr Caligari: Silent wonder as sleepwalker terrorises town at the same time as sinister bullish carny seems also to run the local asylum. Crazy expressionistic backdrops suggest a constantly unsettled state of mind which might be as easily fallen into as a gutter. Like a nightmare that has sneaked out from an Edvard Munch woodcut.