PETER MEDAK REVEALS HIS METHODS BEHIND DIRECTING
THE CHANGELING,
ARGUABLY ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTING MOVIES OF ALL TIME
WORDS: OLIVER PFEIFFER
T’S NOT MUCH DIFFERENT FROM doing a comedy movie and how you set up a joke and present the punchline,” explains director Peter Medak to SFX. “It’s the same with how you create horror and scariness – it’s all in the timing of the cut and how you please the audience, how you escalate it, and then you absolutely puncture the balloon and ‘Boom!’”
Medak was responsible for directing the 1980 psychological supernatural horror The Changeling, considered by such cinematic luminaries as Spielberg, Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro as one of the scariest films ever made.
“I was always attracted to supernatural things because, unfortunately, I had a brother that passed away at a very early age when I was 14, and I always felt his presence throughout my entire life,” he continues. “So this added value to it to try and make a very clean, classic psychological thriller, which is kind of an investigative journey.”
John (George C Scott) clings on for dear life.
PICTURES: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/ASSOCIATED FILM DISTRIBUTION/GETTY. STOCK ART BY MIKE JONES/GETTY
Scott in front of the custom-built “house”.