Sometimes, a particular subgenre simply isn’t your thing. I can count the number of haunted house movies I like with no fear of running out of fingers: Robert Wise’s original The Haunting; The Innocents; Crimson Peak; Hausu; Beetlejuice if you count comedies. Lake Mungo is a borderline case, not truly a haunted house movie for me, but a great film. I might also say The Others, but I last saw it about 20 years ago, so who knows? There’s one more I enjoy a lot, and we’ll come to that, but to cut a long story short, The Changeling had a bit of a mountain to climb with me. I’ll say this upfront: if you’re generally into ghost/haunting movies, you can add a star to my grade here.
Composer John Russell (George C. Scott) loses his wife and daughter when a truck ploughs into their broken down car.
Composer John Russell (George C. Scott) loses his wife and daughter when a truck ploughs into their broken down car.
- 6/2/2023
- by Sam Inglis
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
“To remember is, more and more, not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture.” — Susan Sontag
My maternal grandfather, Shiwóyé hastiin in Apache, lived with my family during the latter years of his life in the late 1980s. I was about 9 years old and he would watch me play basketball on my makeshift hoop in the backyard while smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and spitting chewing tobacco into soda cans with the lids chopped off. He was mostly quiet, on occasion sharing stories about encounters with rattlesnakes around his horse corral, his review of western movies played on late-night cable, and stories about my mother that were lessons on respect. Sadly, many of the stories have been lost somewhere in memory since that time so long ago.
However, one memory that continues to evoke strong emotions from me in oddly strange ways over the course of...
My maternal grandfather, Shiwóyé hastiin in Apache, lived with my family during the latter years of his life in the late 1980s. I was about 9 years old and he would watch me play basketball on my makeshift hoop in the backyard while smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and spitting chewing tobacco into soda cans with the lids chopped off. He was mostly quiet, on occasion sharing stories about encounters with rattlesnakes around his horse corral, his review of western movies played on late-night cable, and stories about my mother that were lessons on respect. Sadly, many of the stories have been lost somewhere in memory since that time so long ago.
However, one memory that continues to evoke strong emotions from me in oddly strange ways over the course of...
- 7/9/2020
- by Monte Yazzie
- DailyDead
The Changeling
Blu ray
Severin Films
1980/ 1.85:1 / Street Date August 7, 2018
Starring George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas
Cinematography by John Coquillion
Directed by Peter Medak
The success of 70’s shockers like The Devils, The Exorcist and Alien – grindhouse films in big budget drag – opened the door to increasingly explicit studio fare – moviemakers were happy to accommodate and upped the ante in the bargain.
1980 alone saw the release of Sean Cunningham’s seminal slasher Friday the 13th, Ken Russell’s evolutionary freak out Altered States and, infamously, the unvarnished (and x-rated) depredations of Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust.
But it was The Shining, with its rotting ghosts, blood-soaked hallways and promise of never-ending horror that personified Reagan era fright films.
Into this heavy atmosphere ambled Peter Medak’s The Changeling, an unassuming murder mystery disguised as a ghost story. Compared to its over the top contemporaries, Medak’s film seemed...
Blu ray
Severin Films
1980/ 1.85:1 / Street Date August 7, 2018
Starring George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas
Cinematography by John Coquillion
Directed by Peter Medak
The success of 70’s shockers like The Devils, The Exorcist and Alien – grindhouse films in big budget drag – opened the door to increasingly explicit studio fare – moviemakers were happy to accommodate and upped the ante in the bargain.
1980 alone saw the release of Sean Cunningham’s seminal slasher Friday the 13th, Ken Russell’s evolutionary freak out Altered States and, infamously, the unvarnished (and x-rated) depredations of Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust.
But it was The Shining, with its rotting ghosts, blood-soaked hallways and promise of never-ending horror that personified Reagan era fright films.
Into this heavy atmosphere ambled Peter Medak’s The Changeling, an unassuming murder mystery disguised as a ghost story. Compared to its over the top contemporaries, Medak’s film seemed...
- 9/22/2018
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
While ghost stories and the supernatural have made a recent resurgence at the box office (think The Conjuring and Hereditary), there was a time in horror when they lay as dormant as a long-forgotten spirit: the early ’80s. Okay, The Amityville Horror (1979) did big business, and The Shining (1980) did well, but these were exceptions, not rules. Audiences were more apt to take in masked killers and teens in peril than adults dealing with psychic crises of the soul and heart. Leave it to Severin Films to unearth and give the deluxe Blu-ray treatment to The Changeling (1980), Peter Medak’s riveting meditation on retribution and the deep shadows of the past that is long overdue for celebration.
Celebrated composer John Russell (George C. Scott – Patton) moves to Seattle four months after his wife and daughter are killed in a horrendous roadside accident. Looking for a place to write in peace, he...
Celebrated composer John Russell (George C. Scott – Patton) moves to Seattle four months after his wife and daughter are killed in a horrendous roadside accident. Looking for a place to write in peace, he...
- 8/20/2018
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
A renowned Scottish actor and director, he regularly commentated on state occasions for BBC television
Tom Fleming, who has died of cancer aged 82, was an outstanding figure in the Scottish theatre of the second half of the 20th century, the first television "face" of Jesus of Nazareth in a 1953 mini-series, and well known as a BBC television and radio commentator at many royal and ceremonial occasions since he first broadcast, for the BBC, during the Queen's coronation in 1953.
He was a Baptist lay preacher, a deeply private man of great moral integrity and stature. This much was clear not only on stage but also as he spoke in his flawless, rich and velvety baritone voice at the funerals of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the Queen Mother. So assiduous was he in his properly felt sense of duty that he declined the invitation to appear in a play by Mikhail Bulgakov...
Tom Fleming, who has died of cancer aged 82, was an outstanding figure in the Scottish theatre of the second half of the 20th century, the first television "face" of Jesus of Nazareth in a 1953 mini-series, and well known as a BBC television and radio commentator at many royal and ceremonial occasions since he first broadcast, for the BBC, during the Queen's coronation in 1953.
He was a Baptist lay preacher, a deeply private man of great moral integrity and stature. This much was clear not only on stage but also as he spoke in his flawless, rich and velvety baritone voice at the funerals of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the Queen Mother. So assiduous was he in his properly felt sense of duty that he declined the invitation to appear in a play by Mikhail Bulgakov...
- 4/20/2010
- by Michael Coveney, Carole Woddis, Brian Wilson
- The Guardian - Film News
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