Most of the directors you'll see on my list are among the undisputed masters. Scorsese, Spielberg, Hitchcock, Friedkin, the Coens, Lynch, Coppola, etc. — they're all gonne be making an appearance here soon.
So who the hell is Peter Medak?
Honestly, I didn't even know until I just pulled him up on IMDB a couple minutes ago. Looks like he's done a bunch of TV — "Breaking Bad," "Carnivale," "The Wire" being among his more prestigious entries ( less prestigious: "Remington Steele"). He's done some TV movies. He did that "Romeo is Bleeding" mess with Gary Oldman back in the early 90s.
Oh, and he crafted what is, for my money, perhaps the single most terrifying image in the history of cinema—
—A rubber ball bouncing down a set of stairs.
I don't want to say too much more about "The Changeling" (1980), because a) I don't want to spoil anything, and b) whatever I say will probably make the movie sound stupid. Certainly, in its particulars there isn't anything all that original going on here. It's a standard haunted house movie. That's all. Sure, it's got some weird late-Watergate-era political overtones to it, but that's all really just window dressing.
It's every haunted house movie you've ever seen.
Except it's just better.
Why? I don't even know. Maybe because I first saw it when I was really young, so it made more of an imprint on my psyche than, say, something (admittedly pretty great) like "The Orphanage" or "The Conjuring." Maybe that's all it is.
Except...I've become a pretty sophisticated movie watcher over the years. Horror movies, in particular, have a very difficult time impressing me. And "The Changeling" always somehow manages to get under my skin. Even now, nearly 30 years later.
As a general rule, haunted house movies aren't really known for their rewatchability. Once is usually enough. What was spooky and mysterious and terrifically atmospheric the first time is sort of boring and expected on a return viewing.
But something about this one just works. And it keeps working.
I don't know why.
Another very rewatchable haunted house movie is Robert Wise's classic "The Haunting." I think what makes both of these films work is the fact that they just don't try all that hard. The play with mundanity in a way most horror movies are afraid to. Half the time it seems like nothing's happening...but just as you're about to check your watch, the filmmaker throws an image or a sound at you — something so deceptively simple, like an odd pattern on a wall or a rubber ball bouncing down a set of stairs — and you'll suddenly find yourself shuddering and pulling the blanket up over your eyes.
The scares never announce themselves. But suddenly they're just there when you least expect it, cuddling up next to you on the couch, whispering horrible things in your ear and running cold fingers oh-so-lightly down your spine.
I don't want to oversell this thing. It's a good haunted house movie. Nothing more.
But it's just better than you expect it to be.
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