The Changeling avi - 1980 torrent

1980 George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas

In 1980 the classical haunted house story seemed an ever-so-outmoded genre. At the time it was made The Changeling was a dinosaur, as surely any comparison with the other horror success of the same year, Friday the 13th (1980), would indicate. Even the audiences for either film were different � The Changeling appealed to an older audience, its cast were in the fortysomething age bracket, while Friday the 13th was cast with and pitched directly to the teen market who had no time for The Changeling�s more sedate psychological thrills. Certainly there were other similar haunted house films around at the time � The Amityville Horror (1979) whose success came from pretending to be based on truth rather than association with the genre and Stanley Kubrick�s The Shining (1980) which was a work that broke all the molds of the genre. Elsewhere the traditional haunted house film had gravitated to the province of the tv movie. But with minor exceptions, The Changeling was one of the last of a breed. (A similar kind of ghost story aimed at an older generation was tried the following year with Ghost Story (1981) which proved a colossal flop). Of course a couple of years later Poltergeist (1982) came along and smartly relocated the haunted house in suburbia and brought the genre into the modern effects and pop-up horror arena.

Even though it does plumb an old genre, The Changeling does a fair job of it. Instead of a killing every five minutes, director Peter Medak takes his time developing atmosphere. At the outset his scares at most consist of a door closing of its own apparent accord and a ball bouncing down the stairs. One even begins to think it all might be too slow and sedate for its own good. But once Medak comes to the eerie seance, the atmosphere picks up considerably. Some shots like the appearance of the bathchair at the top of the stairs contain quite a shock...

Review courtesy of: http://www.moria.co.nz/