This week’s Flashback Friday may be a little short as I’ve been out of commission this week with the flu, but I wanted to share the greatness of The Changeling with you before Halloween was over.
The Changeling is a 1980 movie starring George C. Scott that’s as much of a murder mystery as it is a haunted house film. It is one of the best “horror” films I have ever seen and it’s one I keep coming back to year after year. I first saw the film on Halloween of 1999. The town I went to college in has an old, restored theater called The Paramount that shows classic films as well as some new ones, but every Halloween for years and years they showed The Changeling on Halloween. The film has some very iconic scenes including one with a wheelchair chasing Scott through the house and one with a red ball. But these scenes take on a whole new feel in the packed Halloween screenings at The Paramount. In the scene with the red ball there are always red balls thrown down from the balcony and usually a wheelchair can be seen going down the aisle in the pivotal scene of the movie. It’s definitely a place to go for the experience as much for the movie, as most people there have seen the movie several times over.
My first experience with The Changeling was one that included both red balls falling from the ceiling and a wheelchair flying down the aisle, and turning to hit me. Yeah, as if seeing the wheelchair flying down the aisle wasn’t frightening enough, this one stopped going straight and turned and hit me in the leg. Of course, I quickly realized that the chair had simply hit my jacket, which was lying in the aisle, but it was still pretty frightening.
I returned for three of the next four Halloweens I lived in town and each experience was as great as the one before it. Somehow it seemed no matter how much I’d seen the movie it always stayed just as scary and just as good. Unfortunately, last year the company that owns The Changeling refused to give The Paramount the rights to screen the film, and so they have begun showing other horror movies instead, showing Psycho last year and The Shining this year. Honestly I think it’s a shame as this was a great tradition that may never be matched.
But since it was no longer showing at the Paramount I decided to host my own viewing party of The Changeling, and although we didn’t have red balls falling from the balcony or wheelchairs zooming by, everyone who came loved the movie, even though most of them had never seen it before. It’s a movie that holds a special place in my heart and one I try and watch every year around Halloween.
My advice to you is to go out and rent or buy the film on DVD, gather a bunch of friends, and enjoy one of the most original haunted house films you will ever see. Besides, if you want to know more about the movie and how the red ball and wheelchair fit in, let alone how these items can be scary, you’ll have to watch it for yourself.
And with that I invite you to share your thoughts on The Changeling.
Travis Tidmore is a film and TV junkie. He created his own major in college to gain the perspective of both the business and creative sides of film and along the way worked on a couple of shorts, including a make-over show spoof, Purple Eye for the Dull Guy. The first thing he shot was a silent horror short, ...And Monster Makes Three, which he longs to remake, know that he knows more. He's written for his blog, TheCineManiac, for the past 3-ish years now, where he broke the story of the non-cancer version of Fanboys, and covered the Writer's Strike while he was living in L.A. Currently he's looking for work as an attorney and enjoying as many movies and TV Shows as he can while unemployed.
