The Changeling (1980)

Episode 171, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well today we tackle another request, this 1 from our listener Vincent, way up in Norway. He requested that we do 1980s The Changeling, a haunted house movie starring George C. Scott that has a bit of a reputation. This had been on my list for a while but I had definitely not seen it before So I was really excited to jump in and see it for this episode. Craig, had you ever seen this movie before?

Craig: No, I’d never even heard of it. I mean, when you said The Changeling, I was thinking about that Angelina Jolie movie that came out sometime in the aughts. Oh, yeah. So no. Yeah. I had no idea what we were getting into. This apparently was filmed in 1979, but wasn’t released until 1980. So we were just mere babes when this came out.

Todd: Yeah, This would have been something I would have imagined would have shown up on television like on Saturday afternoons after all the cartoons during like the Saturday afternoon Schiller movie, right?

Craig: Yeah, it’s what it kind of felt like.

Todd: It really did feel like that. It’s a haunted house movie at the heart of it, right? Yeah. Supposedly based on a true-ish story, the writer, Russell Hunter, stayed in a house in Denver and had these strange things happen to him, more or less exactly what’s in the movie, he said. And so he wrote this movie based around it and this is what we have. I mean, I don’t tend to believe that kind of stuff, to be fair, but it’s a nice idea anyway that this is based on a true story. Interestingly enough for that, it doesn’t   have anything in the beginning or wherever in the movie or in the credits or in the titles or anything that says, hey, this is based on a true story. So it’s not a film that seems to be trying to milk that for what it is, which is interesting.

Craig: Yeah, I had no idea that it was based on a true story or supposedly true story either until I was reading about it just mere minutes ago. I was interested. You know, that kind of, for me, I almost wish that I had known that going in because I felt like it would have added some level of interest that maybe this really happened. And you know, I, for the longest time in my life, was like you and would say things like, I tend not to believe these things. I was super, super skeptical of anybody who ever said   that they had any kind of experience like this until, okay, so the town that I live in, a small town in rural Missouri, it’s a college town, that’s where I met Todd, he lived here for a while too, We’re a university town and there was 1 building Todd you’ll remember well Baldwin Hall. Oh, yeah that people Were all the time saying was haunted and that they had had these, you know unexplainable experiences in And I would always roll my eyes hearing these stories and like, okay, you know, good story, bro, whatever. But then something happened to   me too. And I was told I was alone, I was totally by myself. And this weird, totally unexplained thing happened. And so I’m a believer now. Okay. Like, I swear, like I was so skeptical. I didn’t believe it at all. I would roll my eyes at these types of things. But then something totally weird and unexplainable happened to me while I was all alone in the basement of Baldwin Hall. And so now I give far more credence to people who share ghost stories. So I’m not as big a skeptic as you are perhaps.

Todd: Well, that’s a good story, Craig. Maybe you should make a movie out of it.

Craig: It would be a really short movie.

Todd: I think so, probably. I’ll tell you, my dad and his, well, my dad has a brother and a sister, and they lived in supposedly a very legitimately haunted house in New Jersey growing up. And he tells me story. It was this house way up in the woods overlooking the town. He went to a school, if you can believe this, it was actually called the River Sticks School. Kid, you not. Public elementary school in New Jersey. And this house supposedly was very haunted. Now, you know, this again is the sort of thing I’m extremely skeptical about, except   it comes from my dad. And the family has talked about it very matter of factly for a very long

Craig: time. Well, and your dad seems like a very rational, down to earth guy, you know? He is. Like not somebody to make up that

Todd: kind of thing. No, and all of them really are, you know? But my grandmother, there was a basement in this house and my grandmother hated going into the basement because she always felt like there was somebody watching her. And there was my aunt lived in sort of a studio in the kind of like an attic type studio up above, you know, where like the ceiling is really

Craig: the roof

Todd: kind of thing. And to get into her room, there was a trap door. And once she woke up and would and swore that there was a girl standing by the trap door at the foot of her bed. And then quite regularly to the point where they got used to it, apparently in the downstairs, the doors to the cabinets there would bang, just open and shut and open and shut in this 1 room. And they even did this deal where they put string across the cabinets, you know, because of course you’d walk in the room and nothing   would be there. You know, the, the noises would stop and the cabinets would be there. And, and sure enough the string wasn’t broken in any way. And they said also that the, all of the jars that they had in their fridge like all of the cans and bottles or whatever in their fridge periodically would be completely unscrewed and just sitting on top of the jar the lids would be periodically unscrewed now it’s just the weirdest poltergeist whatever you can kind of imagine so you know I mean they lived in this house for years and put up   with this, I guess, you know, which is also a little credulous. I mean, incredulous. I don’t know. But anyway, this is total family history told as though it is nothing. And so, you know, they said, yeah, you know, we were more fascinated by it than anything at the time. She said, I don’t think anybody except for my grandmother was ever frightened by these odd goings on in this house. And actually that came to me when I was watching this movie. George C. Scott moves into this haunted house and maybe 1 of my biggest criticisms of this   film is that it’s hard for me to get terrified by what’s happening in this house because he doesn’t seem terribly terrified by what’s happening in this house. Like he’s just so rational about it all. He just kind of walks around and these things that, now there were scenes in this movie that gave me chills. And that scene would be over and he’d be staring at whatever, like the wheelchair at the top of the staircase that shouldn’t be there. And then it immediately cuts to a scene of him walking down the street to the library. Like, what?   How did we get from point A to point B? Why was he not running, screaming out of this house? What did he do? Like, take the wheelchair back to the attic? Like, okay, well, we’ll see what happens next, you know? I think that was my biggest criticism if I were to kind of overarch it. There were so many scenes in this, actually I thought the movie was pretty terrifying in a few spots, but at the end of the day it all kind of got neutered by the fact that you never felt like he was in a   lot of danger because he never acted like he was in a lot of danger. And furthermore, the movie was edited in a way that it would just cut away from these scenes of scariness to the next day. And they’re still in the fricking house. Right. You know?

Craig: Well, You know, and I read some critical reviews of the film. And most of them were very positive. And this film was actually pretty critically acclaimed. And it won a bunch of awards, especially in Canada. I guess they found it really good in Canada. The thing is, that was 1 of the criticisms I read, that there really didn’t, there wasn’t enough impending doom, like you didn’t have a fear that something terrible was going to happen and And I agree with that but at the same time Maybe that adds kind of more credibility realism to it if   in fact it is based on a true story. Because, you know, the things that are happening, yeah, they’re spooky, but it’s not like he was afraid for his life, you know? Like, oh, so there’s banging in the house. Well, big deal, there’s banging in, There’s banging in my house that I don’t know where it comes from sometimes. I see where your mind is.

Todd: Bring it up. There’s banging in my house. I know exactly where it’s coming from.

Craig: Bring it out of the gutter, Todd. That 1 little spooky experience that I had, yeah, it was spooky, but it’s not like I felt like I was in danger. It’s not like I never went back there. So, I was in a play. The dressing room, the makeup room was downstairs. That’s where it happened. And I kept going back. It’s

Todd: not like I fled. You keep alluding to this, Craig. You got to tell us what happened. What

Craig: happened? Oh, okay. It’s so silly. Okay, so I was down, it was for a play in college and I just happened to be the only person in the makeup room at the time. And this basement, I mean, it’s an old building and it was spooky. You’ve been down there, you know.

Todd: And. Mm-hmm, it is spooky.

Craig: Not only were the makeup rooms down in this dingy dark basement, but they also were connected to this entire tunnel system that ran under the whole university that nobody even really knew about, except I’m sure like the maintenance people and those of us who had to put our makeup on down in that little spooky basement room. But I was down there by myself and I put on music. I put it on and it turned off and I was like well that was weird and so I started it again And this was in the days of CDs,   so it was a CD. I turned it on again, and it turned off again. And I’m like, what the heck? And so I turned it on again, and not only did it stop again, but the stereo lid popped open, and the CD flew out of the stereo

Todd: Like across the room flew out or

Craig: no like like just popped out and landed on the on the counter But you know why really weird it’s weird,

Todd: but you know I think you’re sticking I think your stereo was just broken. That’s why it kept stopping.

Craig: How does it pop out? You know those in the old days with the CDs, you had to open

Todd: the flip

Craig: top cover, and you had to stick it down on to… It stuck in. It’s not like you just slid it in, like you do if anybody still uses CDs today, like you slide it in and it like sucks it in. No, you had to like pry it on to like these prongs.

Todd: Under tension.

Craig: Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, so that happened.

Todd: I thought you were going to tell me something like, oh, then a ghostly voice came across, saying, don’t play this music.

Craig: No, but other people saw stuff in there too. Like, our friend Ron, who I think we’ve mentioned before who works in that building, has said many times that he’s seen and heard things, people hear like disembodied music playing. Now granted, it was a music hall for a while, so somebody could have been practicing somewhere. But you know, my partner, You’ve mentioned our friend Randy, who also works there. He’s like the building manager there. He’s seen things. My partner worked for Randy. He saw things like unexplained lights going on and off and all kinds of stuff. So   There’s a long history of people telling these stories, but I would literally like scoff at them and like openly like okay And then and then something happened so who knows I don’t know it could have been there could have been a totally rational explanation. The point is, yeah, this guy moves in here and these weird things start happening, and they seem innocuous, you know, safe at first. And to be fair, by the end, the very end, things are raised to the next level a little

Todd: bit. Yeah, they have to be in a movie,

Craig: right? I don’t know, and I guess he’s just, more than anything, curious. He wants to figure out what’s going on. Yeah. And that’s kind of what the movie is. And frankly, like, again, this movie was really well accepted and critically acclaimed. And I just found it a little bit boring. In the very beginning, John is the main character played by George C. Scott, who is an incredible actor. He is on vacation with his family and they have car trouble and so they’re on the side of the road and he goes to a payphone to call for   roadside assistance. And there’s a terrible accident and his wife and daughter are run down on the road. And so he’s kind of recovering slowly from this loss. And there are some, I thought, powerful moments. Like there was 1 moment, it was very brief, where he’s just weeping in his bed. And that sense of loss came across really well. And it seemed like, so he moves, I guess, to kind of get away from past memories or whatever. And I think this is supposed to be set in Toronto. Is that right? Where’s the space needle? It’s

Todd: supposed to be set in Seattle, I think, but it’s filmed in Toronto. Yeah. So there’s a needle there. I guess the needle in the movie is supposed to be Seattle’s, but Toronto has 1 too. Gotcha.

Craig: Okay. All right. So He moves there and he’s looking for a place to live. And I don’t even, he encounters this lady who works for the Historical Society and she’s like, oh, I bet we can find you a place. And she does. She finds him this enormous mansion. Like, here’s this single guy, you know, he’s like, Oh, I think he should stay in this huge historical mansion.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And he says, okay, and he moves in there. And it’s gorgeous. It’s this huge, gorgeous mansion that I would have bet money was an actual landmark, but it wasn’t. It was entirely a facade and set, filmed on sound stages.

Todd: So weird. Yeah. It does

Craig: look totally like a… Yeah, it looks totally real.

Todd: It’s a super elaborate place and it’s, I have to admit, this was even going through my mind as I was watching it. I’m thinking, come on, this 1 single guy is supposed to have this massive mansion to live in And the woman who shows it to him is walking him through the rooms and now he’s a composer. That’s what he does. And she leads him into 1 room and says, this is the music room. This is really why I thought of you in this house. The piano was left here when the society took over just too   much trouble to move, really. It must be in very bad shape. And I looked at him like, it’s just another big room in this giant house with a lot of big rooms. It just happens to have a piano in it. There’s nothing special about this room.

Craig: Well, and to be fair, I mean, apparently, he’s very, very successful. I mean, not, yes, he’s a composer, a famous composer, and I presume that’s where he has amassed the fortune that 1 would need to rent this huge mansion. But he also does guest lecturing at the university in town and stuff

Todd: like that. He should throw a party in this house every now and then, you know? Yeah.

Craig: Oh God, it was a big beautiful house. What a waste. But anyway, I guess the fact that he lost, his sense of loss, his feelings of loss are what draws this spirit to him. You know, it’s almost a 2 hour movie, it’s an hour 45, and it felt a little long. It felt very much like a mystery, but I felt like the mystery was like 75% resolved really early. And so, you know, weird things start happening I don’t even remember like 1 of the first he hears these Banging at first I thought the piano I thought   it was the piano banging, but it wasn’t, I guess. I guess it was like the heat or something that was banging. He calls in some maintenance guy that’s just always around and the guy says, oh, it’s an old house, this stuff happens. Okay, well, fine, whatever. Then we see little things like he’ll be playing the piano and a door will open behind him and he doesn’t even notice. So just, you know, little things here and there. The first kind of big thing that happens is he hears a faucet running and he goes into the kitchen and   yeah, the faucet’s running. He turns it off. Well, he turns that off. He hears that there’s water running elsewhere. So he goes upstairs, a bathtub faucet is running and there’s water in the bathtub. And then at that moment he sees under the water what appears to be a little boy, like under the water. And like you said, it’s so weird. Like he sees it and he’s like, and then it just immediately cuts away and he’s just like walking down the street. Banging is 1 thing, CDs flying out of a CD player is 1 thing. Seeing a   ghostly boy under the water of the bathtub, that would freak me

Todd: out.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: 1 would think. I don’t know, I didn’t actually feel that this movie was poorly paced. I felt like it was pretty much on par with most haunted house movies, especially this era. I thought it actually had a pretty nice build to it. It was a little slow. I think it’s a little slower than what we normally expect nowadays from our haunted house movies. But for the time and for you know what I guess you could consider a classic movie now, 1980, that’s getting back there I guess. I thought it had a nice pacing. 1 of the   nice things it did was it did have something mysterious happening on a fairly regular basis even though those mysterious things more or less were innocuous. They weren’t even to the level necessarily of CD flying across the room. They were definitely like a piano key plays itself, which is scary, but it’s not going to hurt anybody. And you’re right, up until we get this drowning kid’s face in the bathtub, you don’t get a real sense. But then again even that is something that may or may not be in somebody’s head, right? Sure. You’re always watching these kind   of movies and you the character sees something and you’re always weighing it against Did he really see it or did he imagine he saw it? Especially when you’re dealing in this case with a guy with who had some trauma you always wonder is this a psychological thing? Is his own trauma that’s that’s building in and so even that if I’m gonna play devil’s advocate here I could make an excuse for why he might it kind of like house The guy’s undergone trauma and so it might not necessarily… He may be questioning himself in all of this.   You don’t get that sense that he is but it’s an argument that could be made for why he doesn’t run screaming or freak out more when all these things happen. I don’t know, but then again, his character’s just sort of painted that way. He’s very flat, I think, through this

Craig: movie.

Todd: Except for the crying at the 1 moment. That’s about it. And even his grief Isn’t really played up. I feel like it kind of falls by the wayside a little bit Maybe it’s meant to be an undercurrent or an undertone that kind of like flows beneath everything that happens But I never really felt like it was referenced a lot.

Craig: Yeah, I Don’t know. Yeah, I agree with you to an extent, but I just, I think that George C. Scott is such a talented actor that he can kind of get away with some of that subtlety. And there are moments, you know, there’s a moment where he goes riding. He’s got a, I guess it’s his romantic interest. Is her name Claire?

Todd: Is that? Yeah, Claire

Craig: Norman. And at 1 point they go horseback riding and he just has kind of a quiet moment and she’s like what’s matter? He’s like well my daughter who died really loved horses and that’s it that’s as far as it goes but you kind of you know you see a little bit of his pain. There’s a moment where again another kind of haunted moment where he’s kept this like rubber bouncy ball that belonged to his daughter. It’s kind of like the 1 thing that he’s hanging on to. And at 1 point it comes rolling down the stairs   and he takes it and like drives away somewhere and drops it over a bridge. And it’s very subtle, but I feel like you see that this is a moment for him, like I’m letting this go. And then of course he comes back home and it’s back. And that’s just further evidence for

Todd: him. That was chilling. I mean, you know, the whole ball bouncing down the stairs thing, I don’t know how many times we’ve seen that in a haunted house movie. It’s become cliche by now. But I think at the time of this film, it wasn’t quite so cliche. And in fact, it really fits because his daughter, 1 of his earlier memories of her that was earlier established was her tossing this ball at him. And in fact earlier in the movie the ball falls out of some boxes as the helper is bringing the boxes in and that’s what   triggers that memory. So the ball ties in quite nicely. That moment where he throws away the ball and I knew what was coming but still I mean I got chills when that came back down the stairs. I was just so balled and bowled and then boom you know next day.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: This isn’t something you can write off You know you threw that ball away and it is back in the house now, right? Rolling around

Craig: and it’s creepy and I feel like that’s what that’s kind of the last thing that, I don’t know, I mean they do some investigating, at some point he’s outdoors and a window shatters and to trace what window has shattered, because it appears that it’s in this attic room, but he can’t find the room. Eventually he finds it, but the door has been hidden behind these shelves. So he has to tear down these shelves to get up there. And he gets up there, and of course it’s very cobwebby and spooky and haunted looking.

Todd: It’s cobwebby alright. I thought you need to watch out for the spider that’s been making these cobwebs, buddy. Yeah. It’s gotta be 1 massive spider or clan of spiders in there.

Craig: Well at that point I think it was supposed to have been shut up for like almost a hundred years.

Todd: Yeah. They’ve been working hard though over that 100 years. Let’s just put it that way.

Craig: That’s true. And there’s a spooky old fashioned wheelchair in there. It’s kind of evident that it was a child’s room. There are toys, it looked like maybe little army men or something. And there is a music box. And when he plays the melody from the music box, it turns out that it’s the same melody, exactly, precisely the same melody, as a song that he thought that he had composed like the day before. But he records all of his compositions on tape and when he plays the tape and the music box at the same time they are   in perfect unison. So weird spooky things going on. At some point He’s up there and he’s up there with Claire I think and they find a monogrammed notebook that has the initials CSB and it’s dated January 4th 1909 That leads them to do like my favorite thing in these old movies where they have to go like do their library research. On microfil, it’s great. On microfiche, yeah. And he finds out that in 1909, the owner was a doctor with a couple of kids. And the daughter, he finds out that the daughter of the doctor was killed   in a freak accident when she was hit by in the road and he thinks oh man that’s just like what happened to my daughter so maybe that’s the connection and then that kind of gets pushed to the side for the rest of the movie that really doesn’t have anything else to do with it. I can’t remember in sequence when it happens, but eventually he has a vision of a young boy in a bathtub in that room and a man comes in and grabs the boy by his ankles and holds his ankles up in the air so   that the kid is submerged in the water and can’t get out and the kid drowns.

Todd: Okay, now I’ve just got to stop you here because this was a really disturbing scene for me.

Craig: It was. It was hard to watch. It was really sad.

Todd: It even brought back thoughts of burnt offerings where the father almost drowns his son in the pool. And that went on for so long and it was just so visceral. Yeah, this was worse, I think. Well, first of all, because he actually ended up drowning him. And second of all, it was horrible. It was this unfeeling kind of thing where he lifts his legs up. You don’t even see the dad. You see his arms and his body and he lifts this kid’s legs up in the air and just lets the rest of him flounder about inside   the water of his little bathtub until he stops. Oh, God, man, I just couldn’t, I could hardly watch that, honestly.

Craig: Yeah, it was really, I mean, it was disturbing and it was sad You know this this young boy and and especially when you get the context that this is his father doing this to him. And the way that they get that context is they have a seance. I don’t even remember what prompts the seance.

Todd: Oh, he goes to a place with, like, I think it’s at the university or something, and they’re talking about psychics.

Clip: I tell you, off the record, we have coming here many mediums and spiritualists and so and we test them. Now, 99% are the frauds, but the 1%? Astonishing.

Todd: And so he apparently refers this medium to him. He’s trying to get some kind of psychic investigation going on the house, I

Craig: think. Right. And so they have this seance and this medium, you know, calls on whatever spirit is there and then I can’t think of the word for it. That psychic writing. Automatic writing I think is what they

Todd: call it.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, something like that. And that’s what she’s doing. Like she’s just scribbling on notepads and her assistant is like, you know, pulling the papers out whenever she fills up 1 page and she goes on to the next page. And it’s mostly just, you know, like swirls and things. But as she’s communicating, eventually she gets some response and the spirit through her writes things. She says, are you the little girl who died? And the spirit says, no, I’m not. And she asks, who is it?

Todd: It’s

Craig: Joseph. She’s like, what do you want? And he writes John, which are our main character’s name, and help. That’s pretty much it. And then something on the table falls over and knocks the glass over and the glass shatters and that’s it. But John was using the same tape recorder that he uses to record his compositions to record the seance and when he listens to it later He can hear the spirit talking on the tape when the spirit is asked. How did you die? The spirit says my father my room and that I think is when He   ends up having the vision, you know, he he sees the whole thing play out.

Todd: That’s a big criticism I have of the movie too. It’s a vision. He could have had it at any time. Right. It wasn’t necessarily, I guess it was triggered by, I don’t know, who knows what it was triggered by, but I kind of hate that in these kind of movies where the character has a vision. It’s almost like the character has a dream that explains something, you know? And here you’ve got this investigation, he’s figuring things out, that I could kind of wrap myself around, but then it’s so convenient for a guy then to just have   a vision that then furthers the plot as well. And not only that, but gives him really important crucial key information that he wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, you know. Now, I thought that that seance scene was very well done. I mean, I thought it was intense too. Seriously, I was kind of on the edge of my seat with it wondering if something bad was gonna happen. And then when he sits there and he plays that tape back afterwards and you hear that voice, once again, I’m thinking, oh my gosh, something bad’s gonna go on. He’s gonna hear   that voice say something really creepy or something’s gonna come behind him or whatever because he plays it back over and over and over again. And gosh, man, we do this so often. You think of other movies, right? Was it sinister where the guy plays the tape back and it says something different the second time?

Craig: You see, yeah, something like that.

Todd: Maybe it was the rock and roll nightmare or something like that, I don’t know. There was the potential for that to happen. It didn’t, but boy, I was waiting for it and I was really thinking. It kept an intensity about the scene. But then again, I’m kind of a little let down that nothing really came of it. Then the next day he’s out walking around and doing his next thing. Right. And the fact that the voice spoke, you’d think they would be building on that, you know, is he going to try to talk to it now?   Is he going to start hearing this voice more often? And none of that really happens either, you know? So it’s odd. I mean, it’s got these neat elements. And it’s got these, I think, really intense scenes, really strong creepiness, but none of it necessarily kind of builds on each other. There’s no build. It’s like, okay, yeah, a bunch of creepy things are happening, that is a build, but it’s not like they’re all building together to create a larger intensity and a cohesive manner. You know what I mean?

Craig: Yeah, I mean, I feel like the purpose is that they’re trying to place the puzzle pieces you know, bit by bit. And they do, you know, I feel like maybe they reveal a little bit too much early on and that ultimately the end game is a little bit, I don’t know, it’s not like it’s not interesting, it is interesting, but I feel like they show their hand a little bit too early. But I will agree with you that those scenes with the seance and the him playing back the recording, yeah, I was very much invested in   those scenes. I was interested. There was tension. I was very interested to see what was going to come of it. But then it just kind of gets back into procedural mystery and there’s nothing wrong with that. And obviously people, you know, enjoy it and enjoyed it at the time. It’s just, to me, it’s like, oh, here’s this kind of really intense, tension scary part. Alright, let’s go do some more research. Like, ugh, can we skip the research? Like, I get it, I get it. Like, that’s what would happen in real life. Like, you would have a   moment and then you would go and do some research, but this is a movie. Like,

Todd: Keep me entertained. Going back, and I think maybe this is the, maybe 1 of the last bits that I thought was super creepy, and it must not have been long after that, because he calls that woman and she comes over, and I guess he’s told her over the phone what he saw and what he’s kind of figured out about this kid being drowned. So she comes in, she’s super distraught, she’s crying. I think about the whole idea of it. She wanders into the other room as she’s crying out into the foot of the staircase. And he’s   in the other room next to her where she just left. And suddenly she turns and she looks and she literally like her face freezes. And she has this absolutely horrifying look on her face. And I was flipping out when I… I mean… Right, what is she seeing? What is she seeing? And it’s like, I don’t know how many seconds went by, but it felt like an eternity for just to see her glassy eyes, nothing coming out of her mouth, staring an absolute horror. And it’s a side view. It’s really, really cleverly framed. And he’s kind of   blurry in the background. He comes towards her like he’s going to comfort. He’s like, what, what, what? And it’s like, frickin’ turn around, frickin’ turn around and look at what she’s looking at so that we can finally see what she’s looking at. And I mean, I was reaching out at the screen at that moment and he turns around and it was not disappointing at all. That wheelchair that they had seen up in the attic covered in cobwebs that belonged to this kid was at the top of the stairwell and it turned towards them. And I about   flipped. Like, you know, like movies don’t really scare me that much anymore, but I about flipped at that. And then it cut away to like the next freaking day. Like what? What? Yeah.

Craig: Yeah, it happens time and time again.

Todd: What did you do with the wheelchair? Did you, you know? I mean, they put it back in the attic. They had to because later on, we see it back in the attic again. Right. You know what I mean. But there gets to a point where he sits there screaming, what do you want, you know, at the end of the house. And I don’t remember how he gets around to this whole deal with the metals and finding that.

Craig: I know. That’s the thing. I kind of lost track of it too. Like they research the kid and they find out that the kid was disabled, but then something about an orphanage and they’re like, oh this poor kid, he was disabled and then he was an orphan, and I’m like, what, what are you talking about? And then somehow they are directed to this place that was on the original estate of the house. And he goes and he looks at all these like- Maps. Yeah, maps. Historical. Atlases or something. And this guy tells them like, oh, okay,   here it is over time. And John is like, well, what’s this little circle right here? And they’re like, well, that’s a well. And it shows up here and it shows up 10 years from then and it shows up 10 years from then. But then they redistributed the property. That got sold off. Yeah, and it got sold off and they built a house there and the well’s not there anymore. And so he goes to this house that just some rando woman lives in and eventually they go to her and they tell her the whole story and at   this point they know about, you know, this boy had been killed, drowned, and they believe, Again, I’m not really sure how they get there, but what they figure out is that the dad, whose name was Carmichael, had a son… Well, he had a son and a daughter. The daughter was killed by the coal cart. The son was physically disabled. And then the mom died. Well, it turns out that all of the wealth in the family came from the mom’s side of the family. And when she died, her dad left all of the money in estate and   property to the son, the disabled son. But he left it in trust and that trust was overseen by the dad. But if the disabled son died before he turned 21, the dad wouldn’t get any of the money. So what he did apparently was he killed his disabled son because he feared that he wouldn’t make it to 21 and then secretly adopted a kid from like a foreign orphanage and then he sent the new kid, the changeling, away to a boarding school or to a hospital or a sanitarium or something in Europe. And it just so happened   that World War I broke out and so it made sense that he wouldn’t bring the kid back and so then after World War I is over he brought the kid back but by that time the kid was 18 and so it was easily explained that he had been cured while he was over in Europe all that time, that kid then inherited all of the family wealth and became a senator. It’s so like, it’s so contrived.

Todd: Like, but. Yeah, it’s rather

Craig: convenient. It’s logical. I mean, it makes logical sense. It’s not so… I don’t have to suspend my disbelief that much to believe that that could have happened. Yeah. So now, apparently John is on this mission to like, he doesn’t even know what he’s doing. He just keeps saying that, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just keep trying to do whatever the Spirit is leading me to do. And the Spirit leads him to this house and he convinces the lady who lives in the house to let them tear up a room in her house to excavate   the well that… I don’t even know how he knew the kid was in the well, but he was. And they find the bones and then there’s this whole thing about a medal. I don’t even know what that medal was all about.

Todd: I have no idea where that medal came from. I don’t know what, did they read it in the newspaper or something, I don’t remember.

Craig: They must have, I don’t know. But it

Todd: was really important to them because they find the body and they call the cops over and the cops dig up the body and then he gets all cagey about why he, which is funny that the cops just end up dropping it. Like this guy came over, chainsawed up the floor of the house, found a hidden well and a body inside and well, I just happened to stumble upon it. Well like you were not renovating the floor, you know. Let’s just put it that way. So anyway, they just let it go, but he’s like I’ve got to   get back there because if without that metal, you know, we don’t have any proof. And so he goes down and basically breaks back into the house, digs through there to look for this metal, can’t find it, and then supernaturally, the metal comes up through the ground and reveals itself, which must have been just like 2 inches. If he just dug just like 1 more scoop of dirt more, he probably would have found this metal.

Craig: Yeah,

Todd: right. And it turns out that the changeling guy, the Senator has his own copy of it.

Craig: I don’t know. Which also doesn’t make sense. I know, I don’t know.

Todd: If this metal proves that the kid is who he is, right, and it’s that important, and then the dad did this swap, wouldn’t the dad have just taken that medal and given it to the new kid? Right. Why would he have buried the old kid with that medal and had an exact copy made for the new kit, right? Right.

Craig: Well, and then, so John, like, tries to confront this Carmichael guy, the senator, with the medal, and the Carmichael guy, like, acts like he, like, he’s trying to act like he doesn’t know what’s going on, but it seems like he kind of does know what’s going on. And then he sends a police goon to threaten John, and we find out that Claire has been fired from the Historical Society without explanation and John has lost the lease to his house and this detective is threatening to come back and tear up the house until they find this metal   And then the detective mysteriously dies in a car accident, which we are meant to believe was caused by the ghost. And then John, again, really with no purpose, like I just don’t even understand. Like He goes to the Carmichael guy and he tells him the whole story. He tells him the whole story of how he was swapped and blah blah blah. And the guy acts like he doesn’t know, but at the same time he says, oh, people have been coming and telling me these wild stories forever. How much do you want for your story? Yeah, he   thinks he’s being blackmailed.

Todd: Like he’s going to buy them off.

Craig: And John’s like, no, I don’t want your money. In fact, here’s everything. Here’s all the evidence. Here’s the metal. Here’s the tape of the seance. Here’s all the files that I found. I’ve done everything I can do like What you haven’t done anything like I don’t know. Yeah, in fact, you’re just kind of like, you know giving this guy his way out The other thing that was bothering me was like this guy’s a senator, he’s obviously already well established, so what if this comes out? He didn’t do anything, you know? Like, he was just a victim   in all of this. Like, What difference is it going to make, really? But apparently it’s really important.

Todd: Well, I think he has some feelings about his father, his quote unquote father, his reputation, I guess, maybe even in death. He’s like, my dad was a good man. He was a very good man. None of this makes sense. He wouldn’t do this kind of thing. And he gets quite upset about it. So maybe that is really, it’s just kind of a family honor thing more than anything else at the end of the day.

Craig: That’s fair. That makes sense. Yeah. And he does. He says that. He’s like, I’m not going to let you destroy his legacy. And I get that, especially you know, if he really, you know, if he was so young that he really doesn’t remember, and that you know, if his father, you know, raised him well and with love, you know, I can understand that that would be upsetting and you wouldn’t want people to know about that. But, whatever. So then John goes back to the house and the spirit is clearly still angry and that’s when he’s like,   what do you want from me?

Todd: And that’s a good question actually, because I really wasn’t sure at this point. I mean, they found the body, he confronted the dude, what did he want? Did we find that out by the end of

Craig: the movie? The only thing, like I feel like the spirit wanted vindication. He wanted the wrong to be righted.

Todd: The truth to come out or something.

Craig: I guess. Ultimately, I don’t really know what that means because what happens is first, before John even gets home, Claire gets there and she sneaks around the house. This was a really interesting scene because I feel like they were trying to kind of give us her perspective because all of a sudden the camera started doing wonky things where like the the rooms were kind of like the camera was tilting. So it kind of gave you this uneasy, I’m on a boat kind of feeling. And I felt like that was kind of what she was like, she   was noticing, oh, something’s weird. And she goes looking for him and she ends up in the attic and then the wheelchair chases her until she falls down the stairs. And then John shows up and he gets her out, but then he goes back in and he starts going up the stairs in this ghostly wind which is apparently like hurricane force, like blows him off the landing. And he crashes down and lands on the floor. And then this part was so surreal and bizarre, and you’re going to have to maybe explain it to me.

Todd: I don’t think I can.

Craig: The old guy, the Carmichael guy, the senator is in his office and he takes the medal that John has given him and he lays it over the painted portrait of his dad and it the portrait and the medal start to shake and he’s scared. Then all of a sudden, he’s in the house. Yeah. And he goes walking up the stairs, and the banister catches fire, and the house catches on fire. And John runs out of the house and he and Claire just get the frick out of there Which I thought was kind of funny Carmichael is   in the house and it’s burning like the staircase falls So, you know, there’s no way he can get out of it and he goes up into the attic and it’s burning, but then the scene cuts and you see that he’s also still in his office where he has a heart attack and dies. So I guess that him being in the house was more kind of a vision type thing, except for John saw him there.

Todd: Yeah, I think it was supposed to be kind of a spirit projection, like here, like Maybe he’s having his heart attack, his spirit is leaving his body and it’s returning to the house. Okay. Maybe. That’s the best I can think. Yeah. But you’re right. It’s a little ambiguous there what’s going on. It’s meant to be creepy. But yeah, at the end of the day, they discover the senator’s body and pack him away in an ambulance and what you see is the entire burned down shell of a house with just that wheelchair still sitting there. And that’s   the image that we’re left with at the end of the movie. And the

Craig: music box. The music box is there too and it pops open and it starts playing that melody. And then the camera zooms out to a wide shot of the rubble and the credits roll.

Todd: Well, you know, speaking of the music box, I thought the music in this movie was fantastic.

Craig: Oh, yeah, yeah, really, really good.

Todd: And the cinematography in this movie was also incredibly good.

Craig: Dated, dated from a 2019 perspective.

Todd: Well, you don’t get Zooms and things at least, which would have been typical here, but you get a lot of dolly shots through the house. It’s really sliding through and moving in and out. Really at times there’s a lot of top down shots on the guy and walking through the house as though the house is very much an imposing force on them. You know, I think we talked about that a little bit in Bird Offerings. No, it was the opposite in Bird Offerings, wasn’t it? Where we were seeing a lot of the ceiling, it sort of   felt oppressive in

Craig: a different way. Yeah, yeah. I guess maybe it’s not so much the cinematography that feels dated. It’s probably just more the film stock, you know, the quality of the picture. You know, it just doesn’t look as clean as digital looks today. But, I mean, you’re right. It was well shot.

Todd: It was. The director didn’t really do a lot. He got a lot of acclaim for this movie. He’s done…well, when I say he hasn’t really done a lot, that’s not really fair. I mean, he’s done things. His name is Peter Medak. He did Species 2, you know. He did a number of movies, did a lot of TV. Actually, he did a number of episodes of the reboot of the Twilight Zone in the 80s. He did an episode of Tales from the Crypt. You know, he’s done like Law

Craig: and Order. He did an episode of, oh gosh,

Todd: there was a horror anthology. Masters of Horror, yeah.

Craig: Yes, The Washingtonians, and it was 1 of my favorite episodes from that whole anthology. It was fantastic, It was so good.

Todd: I’ve never seen that 1.

Craig: Watch it immediately. It was so good.

Todd: Okay. And the writer, you know, I talked about the guy who came up with the story. He didn’t actually write the script, but the story has 2 credits. The story is 2 people, William Gray and a woman named Diana Maddox. And William Gray wrote the Philadelphia experiment. He wrote Prom Night and a few things on TV. Wrote for the TV series RoboCop and a few different things. Not a lot of credits, but a decent number of things that you know are in his background. So that’s kind of interesting. The Changeling was 1 of his first screenplays.   So, you know, I mean, it’s not a bad movie. It really isn’t. It’s not as terrifying as it could have been, frustratingly so, because parts of it, I felt, were some of the scariest things I’ve seen in a while, to be honest. I mean, maybe I was just in the mood for it, you know, tonight, but It really hit all the right nerves for me, but then that catharsis never landed. You get up there and then it just kind of fall flat in the sky. I’m not really going on the adventure with him.

Craig: I’m like,

Todd: He’s very detached as he’s going through it. And that allows me as a viewer to kind of be detached too and not really feel that sense of scariness. And so, you know, it was very much a mixed bag in that way. But no, I think overall it’s quite an accomplished movie. It’s good. I mean compare this to a movie like burnt offerings It’s it’s still up there. Maybe even a little better.

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean I didn’t watch it under the best conditions I had to watch it. I watched some of it at work and I chopped it up over, you know, several different viewings.

Todd: You’ve got to stop doing this, Craig. You really get a different perspective on these movies, I think.

Craig: Shhh! Somebody will hear you that I watch these things at work sometimes.

Todd: Oh, I don’t care that you’re slacking off on your job.

Craig: Hey, I have free time sometimes. Anyway, no, so I didn’t watch it under the best conditions. I think that it’s a perfectly competent movie. I think that it’s well-made. It wasn’t engaging and exciting enough for me to really get into it. But I’m in the minority. I mean, it got really good reviews. It was really well received. So if you’re listening and you’re interested in these types of movies and if you’re somebody who likes a diverse style of filmmaking, check it out. It’s certainly worth checking it out. It’s competently acted and well-made. I really don’t have   any Concrete criticisms. I I don’t know. I just it wasn’t really for me

Todd: You know, it stands pretty firmly as a product of its time. Don’t you think? Yeah, yeah Well, thank you again Vincent for your request We really enjoyed it If you have any requests, you can find us on Facebook. Just search for 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. Leave us a note there and let us know what you’d like us to hear. Also let us know what you thought of this podcast. And if you enjoy this podcast, please share it with a friend. We love to get new listeners. You can find our webpage, 2guys.red40net.com, or you can simply   Google us and you’ll find us wherever you find podcasts posted. Until next time, I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.