The Changeling Composer John Russell (the late George C. Scott) truly has a devestating hole in his heart. Having witnessed the tragic deaths of his wife and daughter in a recent snowplow accident, he wishes to simply continue his work as a composer. And his new house would be the ideal locale, were it not haunted. This new home has it all, except for familiar company. A friend, Claire Norman (Trish Van Devere) is on hand to help John Russell work through his hardships. The trouble is.... The house seems to creak at night. There are also apparitions which confront John Russell in his new home, some of them submerged in bathtub water, some of them pounding from walled-up attic rooms. This ghost is clearly not one who's going to leave quietly. He's got a mission, and he doesn't mind one bit heaping it upon our grieving Mr. Russell. There's a dusty and closed-off room in the attic which seems to have once belonged to a small child. From all indications, it was a sickly lad, as evidenced by the cobweb-covered wheelchair, which later develops a life of its own and pursues a terrified Trish down the rickety stairs (in one of the film's eerie highlights). And a local girl has been having nightmares about an emaciated boy coming up from her floorboards, so when the parents insist on having the area under her bedroom excavated, a grisly discovery is made. Russell eventually cottons onto the fact that his new house is not only haunted, but the ghostly shenanigans are the fruits of a long-buried scandal that could lead right up to the prominent Senator Joe Carmichael (Melvyn Douglas). Choices are made, then destinies are fulfilled. And at the end of it all, the innocents stand tall and leave the scene of the crime. Director Peter Medak crafted a fine 1980 ghost tale with modern trappings (watch for the moist and bouncing ball!) based upon a story written by Russell Hunter and scripted by Diana Maddox and William Gray. This one's first class. >>Back<< >>Archive Index<<