| The Changeling | |
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| Directed by | Peter Medak |
| Written by | Russell Hunter William Gray Diana Maddox |
| Starring | George C. Scott Trish VanDevere Melvyn Douglas John Colicos Jean Marsh Madeleine Sherwood |
| Cinematography | John Coquillon |
| Distributed by | Associated
Film Distributors released =  March 28, 1980 March 28, 1980 |
| Running time | 115 min. |
| Language | English |
The Changeling is a 1980 horror film directed by Peter Medak and starring George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere (Scott's real-life wife). The story is based upon events experienced by writer Russell Hunter while he was living in the Henry Treat Rogers Mansion of Denver, Colorado.[1]
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Scott stars as Dr. John Russell, a composer living in New York City, who moves cross-country to Washington state following the tragic deaths of his wife and daughter in a traffic accident while on a winter vacation in upstate New York. In suburban Seattle, Russell rents a large, old, and eerie-looking Victorian-era mansion and begins piecing his life back together.
However, Dr. Russell soon discovers that he has unexpected company in his new home when a poltergeist, the ghost of a murdered child, haunts the house. It shatters windows, abruptly opens and shuts doors, and manifests itself during a seance. Russell investigates and finds that the mystery is linked to a powerful local family, the heir of whom is a wealthy US senator.
Although set in the US, The Changeling was produced by a Canadian production company and filmed largely in Canada (although some location shooting was done in New York City). The interior scenes at the university were filmed at the University of Toronto and the Historical Society scenes at the Flatiron shaped Hotel Europe in Vancouver. The scenes at the senator's home were filmed at what was then Royal Roads Military College (now Royal Roads University) in Victoria, British Columbia. Interior scenes of the mansion where Scott's character lives were a set, as were the exterior scenes; the house was a giant mock-up.
Italian horror filmmaker Lamberto Bava made an unofficial sequel called The Changeling 2 in 1987.
The Changeling won the first ever Genie Award for Best Canadian Film. It also won the following Genie Awards:
This film was #54 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Director Martin Scorsese placed The Changeling on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.[3]
The Soundtrack to The Changeling was released by Percepto Records on CD on December 21, 2001 and was limited to 1,000 copies.[4] On April 13, 2007, Percepto released a 2-CD "Deluxe Edition" of the soundtrack, which was also limited to 1,000 copies and has subsequently been sold out.[5]
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Regular Edition Track Listing |
Deluxe Edition Track Listing Disc 2 |
Writer and playwright Russell Hunter said in a 1980 interview that he based many elements from The Changeling on experiences from his first months in Denver in 1968, while living in a large house at 1739 East 13th Avenue—the north edge of Cheesman Park. The house was razed in the 1970s and a condominium building now stands on the site.
This house was the Henry Treat Rogers Mansion. Hunter rented it for the "unbelievable price of $200 per month, because no one else wanted to live there," Hunter relates. A little more than a week after moving in, strange things began to happen, he said. Banging and crashing were heard regularly, coming from the direction of a bedroom fireplace. One morning, Hunter yelled "Stop it!" and never heard the noise again, he said later. Next, doors mysteriously began to open and close unaided, while walls vibrated and threw paintings to the floor.
A woman he met at a bridge game told Hunter that undoubtedly a poltergeist was in the house. At another social gathering, he said, he met a man whom no one later could identify. The man told him the house had a third floor which could be accessed through a secret stairway concealed at the back of a second-floor closet. With help, he broke open the back closet wall revealing a narrow stairway, covered with a thick layer of dust. In the attic, Hunter discovered a child's trunk that contained the diary of a 9-year-old boy whose family had hidden him in the attic because they were ashamed that he had been born a cripple. The journal mentioned that the boy's favorite toy was a red rubber ball.
At the suggestion of friends, Hunter reportedly called a well-known medium to conduct a seance in the house. The medium told him the crippled child would have inherited a large fortune from his grandfather, but the child died before he could inherit it. He was buried secretly, and the family adopted a similar-looking boy from an orphanage and played him off as their own in order to collect the inheritance. The second boy graduated from a leading university and became a successful industrialist, said the medium.
The spirit of the crippled boy would not rest, according to Hunter. The medium said his body had been buried in south Denver, at a spot that was now under a closet sill of a bedroom in a designated house. The medium said they would know it was him, because they would find a gold medal inscribed with his birthday. The medium also said the spirit threatened harm to the children of the house where he was buried if the owners of the house would not give permission for the search. After a couple of warning incidents affecting their children, the owners of the house gave permission for the excavation under the bedroom floor, and the gold medal was found.
Disturbances at the Henry Treat Rogers Mansion continued, however. Some glass doors blew up as Hunter approached them and shards of glass cut an artery, he said. Some bedroom walls shook. Not long afterward in the 1970s, the house was demolished on order and, during the work, walls of a bedroom exploded and crushed a man operating the bulldozer, said Hunter.
Hunter moved into a house on Kearney Street, but the poltergeist moved with him, he said, and the disturbances continued. At the urging of friends, Hunter called in a priest from Denver's Epiphany Episcopal Church to perform the rites of exorcism at the house. The priest, who asked not to be named, said of Hunter: "He did seem to have a problem. We performed the rites of exorcism in his second house, on Kearney Street." The priest said it apparently worked — at least, he heard no more from Hunter.[6]
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  | The Changeling - The Changeling (1980) DVD | LOVEFiLM |
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