The Changeling (1980 film)

The Changeling
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Medak
Produced by	Joel B. Michaels Garth H. Drabinsky
Written by	Russell Hunter William Gray Diana Maddox
Starring	George C. Scott Trish Van Devere Melvyn Douglas John Colicos Jean Marsh Helen Burns Madeleine Sherwood
Music by	Rick Wilkins
Cinematography	John Coquillon
Edited by	Lilla Pedersen Lou Lombardo (sup)
Distributed by	Associated Film Distributors
Release date	March 28, 1980 (U.S. & Canada)
Running time	107 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	English
Budget	$600,000
Box office	$5.3 million

The Changeling is a 1980 Canadian psychological horror film directed by Peter Medak and starring George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere (Scott's real-life wife). The movie's executive producers were Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna; its screenplay is based upon events that writer Russell Hunter claimed he experienced while he was living in the Henry Treat Rogers mansion in Denver, Colorado.

John Russell (George C. Scott), a composer living in New York, New York, moves cross-country to Washington state following the deaths of his wife and daughter in a traffic accident while on a winter vacation in upstate New York. In suburban Seattle, John rents a large, old and eerie Victorian-era mansion and begins piecing his life back together.

However, John soon discovers that he has unexpected and unwelcome company in his new home. The presence makes its existence felt by various phenomena such as shattering windows, abruptly opening and shutting doors, and manifesting itself dramatically during a seance. John investigates the house and its previous tenants and finds that the mystery is linked to a powerful local family, the heir of which is a wealthy United States senator, Joseph Carmichael.

John subsequently discovers that the real Joseph Carmichael (who was born in 1900) was murdered in 1906 by his father, Richard. Joseph was a crippled, sickly child, and in the event of his death before his 21st birthday, the family fortune (which in 1905, he inherited from his late maternal grandfather) would pass to charity. Desperate to keep control of the fortune, Joseph's father drowned young Joseph in the bathtub, secretly replaced him with a healthy orphan, and took the orphan to Europe in the guise of seeking a treatment or cure. He returned several years later with the impostor, now grown and "cured" of his illness, and continued as if nothing had happened.