In the late 1960s, co-writer Russell Hunter rented the Henry Treat Rogers Mansion in Denver. He said the house was haunted.

Doors slammed, faucets turned on by themselves, walls shook. Hunter unsealed a secret staircase that led to a hidden attic room. He found a diary and a gold medallion belonging to a boy who had been murdered by his family.

THE CHANGELING (1980) adapts Russell Hunter's claims, casting George C. Scott as John Russell, a grieving New York composer who retreats alone to a vast empty Victorian mansion.

Pipes bang. A piano plays a child's melody. A small voice cries in the walls. And the investigation leads into the upper reaches of American power.

Hungarian-born director Peter Medak builds dread out of ordinary objects, with no creature, no gore, and almost no effects. The scariest thing in this film is a small rubber ball. The second scariest thing is an empty wheelchair.

George C. Scott brings the same hard quiet he brought to Patton (and later to The Exorcist III). Melvyn Douglas, in his last great role, plays the senator at the center of the secret. Trish Van Devere, Scott's real-life wife, plays the only person who believes him.

Asked once for the scariest films ever made, Martin Scorsese put this film near the top of his list.

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The Changeling (1980) was an independently financed Canadian production distributed in North America by Associated Film Distributors (AFD).