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Brenda's Review of The Changeling 1980 *Spoilers* · Brenda's Horror Movie Reviews

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, this is Brenda, and I decided that I wanted a good ghost story.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: So today's review is going to be on The Changeling from 1980 with George C.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Scott.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: You may recognize him from The Exorcist 3, and he was also in a version of Titanic from 1996.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was in a Christmas Carol from 1984.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Malice, Oliver Twist, Anatomy of a Murder.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's done it all.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, we lost him at the age of 71 in 1999.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think it shocks me a little bit that this movie was rated R back in 1980 because it doesn't really have anything in there that I would consider bad.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's no nudity, there's no sex, there's no real gore, so to speak, of, but it was rated R for child murder, drowning seances, and by today's standards, it just doesn't really seem that bad.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if you like something that I would consider atmospheric, this is one to go for.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know I love a haunted house.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: George C.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Scott is playing John, who is a composer who recently lost his wife and daughter.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a scene at the beginning of the movie that shows the car breaking down in the snow, and when dad goes to use the payphone, more vehicles fly around the corner and ultimately hit mom and the little girl.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now that he's ready for a change of scenery, he decides to rent a house in Seattle.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: He meets Claire, who shows him the house.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: She works for the Historical Society and tells him that the house has been vacant for 12 years.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was hoping Claire was gonna spark a little bit of something in him, and maybe that would be why it was rated R, but no, they just remain friends throughout the movie.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Things start going down pretty quickly once he's in the house by himself.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: The piano plays a note, faucets are being left on in the bathtub in the sinks, and he's hearing a thudding noise.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: He goes to the Historical Society to ask if anything has happened in the house before, and a different woman there tells him how the house doesn't want people.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: One day, while he's outside, a window breaks from inside on an upper floor.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: He finds an attic room covered in dust and cobwebs, along with a book that's dated 1909 and a music box.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: He shows it to Claire, and the song that it plays happens to be one that he had been working on that he said he'd never heard before until he wrote it.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: The room also contained a small wheelchair, and that drove John into looking into the history of the home.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Later, John witnesses the ball coming down the stairs, so he takes the ball to a bridge and tosses it off into the water.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: When he comes home, another ball comes down the stairs.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And his daughter had a ball that looked just like this.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: He goes to a psychic research facility and has a medium come to the house.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: She's drawn to the attic room and she tells John that it's his loss in love that has a child reaching out to him.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: She's an automatic writer and starts writing the name Joseph and help.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: They record the session and when they play it back, they get things like Joseph, house, my room, can't walk, my father, my room, father, the well, ranch, my metal.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Claire listens to the recording and is able to tie it to the Sacred Heart Orphanage.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: The wheelchair appears on its own at the top of the stairs.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: John is back at the Historical Society going through files and ties everything to a senator, and the old bat that told him that the house doesn't want people caused the senator to let him know that John's going through files.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: He finds the 1960 campaign file and starts kind of putting it together about if dad wanted money and killed his son and replaced him so that the money wouldn't go to charity.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The property that had been the ranch with the well has a house on it now.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: The daughter living in that house had been having dreams, and that's the only reason that the mother let them in to dig up the floor.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: They found the well and a skeleton down in the well.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: But at that time there's no proof that the little boy is the skeleton.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: John goes back later and does some more digging and finds the metal.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: John goes to talk to the senator, and the senator just happens to be flying away in an airplane at that time, but he sees that John has the metal, and as you see him sitting in the airplane, he has one of those medals too.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: John gets home, and it's not long after that Officer DeWitt, hired by the Senator, goes to give him a visit.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: When he leaves, Amir breaks and at the same time he was in a car accident and killed.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Claire tells John that she has been forced to resign from her job at the Historical Society.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where's HR when you really need him?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: John goes to see the senator, and the senator is accusing John of blackmail.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: John lets the senator know he doesn't want anything, he doesn't want any money, and he accuses the senator of being the changeling.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the senator doesn't want to believe that his loving father was a murderer.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: John gives what evidence he has to the senator and leaves.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Claire's at the house waiting for John, and when he gets there, it all seems to fall apart.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's when lights start shaking and flashing and there's wind in the house, the lights swinging, the house catches on fire.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: The senator is at his home and he is having what looks like a heart attack, but a spiritual version of him is climbing the stairs and goes up to that attic room and has his own vision of his father killing his real son.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was thought that the real son who had been in the wheelchair was going to die.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: The final scene is the music box lying in the rubble and it opens up and starts to play that familiar song.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let's hop to it and see how many wine glasses this movie gets.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have to start off by saying I didn't like this movie as well as I thought I did from decades ago.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Eerie, yes, I'll give it a wine glass.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: It definitely has an eerie feel to it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Love a haunted house.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Although it's an old house, I don't find it to be overly scary, so I'm not gonna give it a wine glass for the environment.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Evil, it doesn't really give off an evil feeling.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean the little boy just wants justice, but his father killing him, definitely evil, so we'll give that a wine glass.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Empathy, of course I'm gonna give it a wine glass.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: That poor little girl getting killed at the beginning's enough.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I would definitely say it's entertaining for a 1980 haunted house movie.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So wine glass, so it earned itself four wine glasses.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of those movies that, eh, I may watch again one day in the future, but it's not gonna be an annual thing.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's one of those dark and stormy nights and you're just looking for something to watch, grab a bowl of snacks, a glass of wine, and give it a watch.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: My next review is gonna be an American werewolf in London from 1981.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So until then.