Friday I went to Mall of America and saw The Changeling, which was amazing…
The synopsis from Movieweb:
Los Angeles, 1928: On a Saturday morning in a working-class suburb, Christine said goodbye to her son, Walter, and left for work. When she came home, she discovered he had vanished. A fruitless search ensues, and months later, a boy claiming to be the nine-year-old is returned. Dazed by the swirl of cops, reporters and her conflicted emotions, Christine allows him to stay overnight. But in her heart, she knows he is not Walter.
As she pushes authorities to keep looking, she learns that in Prohibition-era L.A., women don’t challenge the system and live to tell their story. Slandered as delusional and unfit, Christine finds an ally in activist Reverend Briegleb (Malkovich), who helps her fight the city to look for her missing boy. Based on the actual incident that rocked California’s legal system, “Changeling” tells the shocking tale of a mother’s quest to find her son, and those who won’t stop until they silence her.
A bit of a tear jerker…but compelling (to use a movie review cliché)… I also saw another movie this weekend: “House.” My advice? Skip House and go see The Changeling even if you love horror movies. Actually…the Changeling has a horror element in it…
House has every horror movie cliché you can think of. Seriously. There’s the creepy haunted house (of course), the 1800’s style ghost family with creepy son, leaking faucets, storms, random creaks, gross food, insects, “mysterious pasts”, demon worship, random masked killer, odd editing, shrill-tense music, flooded basements, non-reflecting mirrors… oh, and devil worship…(you thought I was kidding)
After the first 20 minutes I realized that the director was cheating – if you have to resort to a distorted montage then, erm. Fail.
And (of course) we have the stock characters: The blond bombshell, who is a country singer…. and her husband, who looks like he missed the audition for Coldplay…
The temptress. The Meat-head… who looks like someone from that other industry…
The shady police officer. And the creepy kid ala Ricci as Wendy…
Apparently this House contains plenty of plum eye shadow…maybe there’s a drag queen hiding in the basement?
