Well..I fail to see what all the fuss is about.
The Changeling (1980)
Directed By: Peter Medak (Species II)
The Prologue
The Changeling is a movie I had heard of, I always thought the cover looked cool to it from way back in the days of my lurking in the horror section of the video store but for whatever reason I never did bother to rent it and neither did anyone else in my family which lead me to believe that perhaps it wasn’t anything worth writing home about..
Then when I did the Top 10 Horror Movies of the 80′s on here and the lists kept on coming in I noticed it showed up on more than one. So that got me to thinking that perhaps I have missed out on something all these years. Even all my blogging buddies seem to enjoy it so I figured it was about time I checked it out so I did.
However folks I think I’m about to shock a lot of folks because I did not see anything great at all about what I saw. But keep in mind, it’s only my opinion.
The Movie
A man staying at a secluded historical mansion, finds his life being haunted by the presence of a spectre. We also get the best part of the film which is George C. Scott in the role of John a musical man that has lost his wife and kid in horrific accident we see at the start of the film, horrific in theory as we don’t really have any gore to go along with it. George however plays everything to a tee and if I didn’t really enjoy this thing with him in it I can only imagine how it would have been without him in it.
One other cool thing about this is the fact that things look epic enough, it has the look and feel of other somewhat similar stories like The Shining and The Exorcist but I think it’s just too drawn out and subtle for my taste. Which notice I say drawn out when the film doesn’t really run that long so by the time the film wraps up I was still just waiting for it to get started.
I kept on telling myself that things are about to pick up here, oh wait! Things are about to get rolling here! And sure things get a little better at points but it just never goes full on and once again it went back to making me feel like the movie is dragging it’s heels when it should be running for the home stretch.
All around the net people are talking about how chilling and how creepy the movie is and while sure it has some creepy parts I wasn’t near as blown away by this sorta thing as many other fellow bloggers I know. It somewhat makes me think my taste might just suck but after talking to a few folks I’ve found that there are a lot of people out there who where rather bored by this film as I was.
While I’ll happily say the ending sequence was probably the coolest looking and most exciting part of the film I’m just going to be forced to say that it (for me) doesn’t save the rest of film I had to sit through in order to get to it. It’s ever bit as much of a thriller as it is a ghost story but for me it was just a ghost story that lacks any teeth.
Sorry my fellow bloggers but The Chuck is not impressed.
The Conclusion
Maybe I just was expecting too much but I was greatly let down by this film that was (as most ghost stories) based on somewhat true events. And while I’m not the biggest fan of haunted house movies I can come up with probably ten or more films of the same nature I’d put above this.
If slow and steady is your thing then this is a movie for you, but unlike most films I’ve seen with a slow build it never really builds to anything worth the drawn out wait.
The Rating (5.5/10)
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