Review – The Changeling

I never thought I’d type these words, but I honestly didn’t like George C. Scott in this role. For starters, he comes across as too old to have a daughter the age of the kid who gets killed at the beginning of this production. But more than his age, it’s the indifference he brings to the part. I was surprised that a guy who could breathe such life into just about everything from generals to cops to lawyers and back to generals again couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for his part in this picture. Mourning the loss of his wife and child, a music professor rents a mansion in Seattle that’s closer to his new job and affords him the space to work (and don’t bother asking where a college professor gets the money for a mansion). He soon discovers that his new digs are haunted by the restless ghost of a wheelchair-bound child. Saying more than that would spoil the plot developments that form the only reason to see this movie. Suffice it to say that this is a ghost story largely in the Shirley Jackson / Henry James mode, though at least it has a few spooky moments. Mildly amusing