Did You Die In This House? The Changeling: A Real American Haunting
For me, there is nothing more chilling than a good ghost story.
When I was a child, I made it my mission to find ghosts. I would read books about the supernatural and proceed to wander around cemeteries waiting for the dead to haunt the living when the sun went down. Weirdo or vivid imagination? You decide.
When my friends and I used to come together and tell each other ghost stories, I would always tell the one about the boy that got killed by his Father... OK, so I lifted that from a film, but you know what? That film resides in my top five of all time - I am talking about the 1980 film The Changeling.
This film gets quite a mixed reception but I am not here to judge you on your poor taste (joke), but I am surprised by how many people have never heard of it and who do not know it was based on a real story. As soon as I heard it was inspired by true events, I felt my child-like self pushing through shouting “oh my god, oh my god” because I used to get so excited about these things. I still do to some extent, but the adult brain kicks in and you know… the little Spock on my shoulder tells me it is highly illogical.
But for now I am going to sit back, forget about adulthood and dive right into this spooky film.
A little bit about the plot - after the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash, a music professor staying at a long-vacant Seattle mansion is dragged into a decades-old mystery by an inexplicable presence in the mansion's attic.
OK, so we have a mansion – check. A mystery to solve - check. A scary attic – check.
The story was based on the paranormal events Russell Hunter (co-writer of the film) experienced while living in an old home near Cheesman Park in the late 1960s. He experienced strange noises and phenomena. He then uncovered a journal written by a boy who had been kept in isolation due to his disability. The Denver Library reports that:
Hunter claimed that a séance revealed the story of a sickly child who was heir to a fortune from his maternal grandfather. When the child became gravely ill, his parents worried that the boy’s inheritance would pass to a different branch of the family. When their son died, the couple secretly buried him in a field in southeast Denver and adopted a boy from a local orphanage who perfectly resembled their deceased son. They trained him to take on the identity of the deceased boy (hence, the “changeling” film title) and the boy went on to become well-educated and successful.
You will find lots more information on the story here
The film is simple and well-paced. George C Scott plays a grieving father and his intensity throughout the film works wonderfully. Having him play this character seems like a very clever move. I have read that some folk think he isn't great for the part, but I have to disagree and can see there is a crack in the almost aggressive veneer of this man -his grief and vulnerability show through which underpins the themes of this film. He seems haunted, just like his new home.
The one thing I always thought was weird was how The Historical Society offered him a mansion when he was just one man. I mean, how much room does he need? I guess a haunting in a pokey little apartment in Seattle wasn’t going to work, right? The house is unnerving due to the scale of it. With its dark hallways and many doors all leading to the places we don’t want to go - abandoned rooms where people have lived their lives many years before. Some still remain of course.
Then we have the attic room, a cobwebbed museum of a boy's life – it is both sad and frightening. Inside the attic, we are presented with many of his belongings (including the journal) and a small child’s wheelchair (that moves by itself at one point in the film, not a spoiler just a warning to brace yourself). How awful, how scary. I mean...I have never looked at a wheelchair in the same way again!
If you haven't seen this, then do give it a go. You won’t get cheap jump scares, but you will find that The Changeling gets under your skin.
Sweet dreams horror fans!
