by Daniel Stephens

Created on: January 23, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

The Changeling

Quietly, The Changeling opens with non-descript credits on a black background before fading up to a bright white, snow covered scene, where a man and his family wonder what to do after their car has broken down. It's a picturesque, winter wonderland, with Dad (George C. Scott) joking around with his wife and daughter. John Russell, a composer and lecturer, walks across the road leaving his family by the car, to use a payphone to call for help. As he's dialing, a truck and another car are heading in opposite directions on the slippery, icy road. An accident is unavoidable, and both vehicles swerve to avoid hitting each other but the truck collides into the screaming mother clutching her young daughter. Russell watches from the phone booth, helpless and struggling to find his next breath the image freezes, holding a snapshot of life mirroring death, as if to perpetuate the darkest moment in this man's life. He's lost everything he ever wanted and he'll never, ever get it back.

The Changeling is an interesting film to say the least, because while it doesn't have anything fresh to add to the genre (indeed, it's story is fairly straightforward), director Peter Medak along with his technical staff (editor Linda Pederson, music composer Rick Wilkins) have created a visually and aurally beautiful film, that plays on the viewers perception of what is placed before them. While not quite matching De Palma's masterpieces: Dressed To Kill, Blow Out, Carrie, Sisters, Medak knows how to use the medium to effectively convey the horrors of what Russell's character goes through. It goes as far as to show up' many of Hollywood's latest efforts in the genre, like the similar themed The Haunting (1999), in that horror', be that fear' instilled in the audience, or something unexplainably awful on screen does not have to exist visually and sonically, but must question a persons own ideological, ethical, and/or religious beliefs to the point where a gray area is manifested in one's mind that defies explanation in its consequence, motivation or otherwise. An eye appearing through a wall like in the original Haunting is frighteningly ambiguous but it's what isn't on screen that instills the fear and raises hairs on the backs of necks. A bed head coming alive stinks of CG diarrhea, like in the 1999 remake, and every attempt to scare' the audience falls flat because the eye candy is too perfect for its own good. Why Gus Van Sant remade Psycho shot for shot is another Hollywood

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