By JASON COMERFORD

They really don’t make ‘em like The Changeling any more, and what a shame it is. Peter Medak’s 1980 ghost story is still one of the best of its kind: intelligently written, perceptively performed, and polished to a sheen by top-shelf talent both before and behind the camera. Largely gore-free but still deliciously unsettling, The Changeling still has bite after all these years; no less a luminary than Martin Scorsese placed it on his 2009 list “11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time.”

Director Medak initially began production with composer Howard Blake, who contributed a critical theme for a music box, which recurs in the final film (in a streamlined version) as an eerie leitmotif. However, the project took a convoluted path towards completion which resulted in Blake’s material being adapted and added to by music arranger & conductor Ken Wannberg. Since the film’s production was based in Canada, composer Rick Wilkins was hired to satisfy contractual stipulations that ensured financial relief; Wannberg ghostwrote much of the final score along with Wilkins.

Indeed, music figures prominently in The Changeling: George C. Scott’s lead character is a concert composer whose wife and child die in an auto accident. Relocating to an aging Victorian-era mansion in Seattle to start life anew, Scott soon finds the mansion may be haunted by the spirit of a young boy. Despite the spreading-around of musical duties, the final score of The Changeling is one of horror music’s finest, a splendidly spooky blend of high-toned classicism and nervous terror. A highlight of the film and score is a nerve-rattling séance where the ghost finally announces his presence; as related by Randall D. Larson in his notes for Percepto’s 2007 release of the music, Wannberg and Wilkins worked together to create a harmonious whole:

“Ken had written a few leitmotifs, short little phrases that the producers liked, and he thought I should just spin off these things, in order to keep the whole score sounding alike,” Wilkins recalled. “I took his direction and just wrote the cues as I saw them, according to the dramatic intent of whatever was on the screen.” Wilkins composed the memorable seven-minute seance scene in its entirety, providing ambient accompaniment to the dialog heard as Joseph communicates to Russell through the Medium. “It’s a rather sparse sounding cue when you take away the dialog and effects. It was just my version of scary ghost writing, using whatever motifs had already been compiled by Ken.” The stingers and atmospheric patterns, such as when the camera pulls back up the stairs or the image cuts to the inside of Joseph’s cobwebbed bedroom, were by Wannberg, while the music derived from the music box theme was based on a simplified arrangement of Blake’s original material.

Percepto’s limited-edition release of The Changeling was later reissued as a double-disc set with extra cues (including a more subdued alternate version of the séance cue), and is easily found from the usual online outlets.

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