When I was running my first video store in San Diego, my friend Skip told me,

reminiscing about a business that had pretty much died out by the time we had this conversation.

I had these guys who came in looking for horror films. They were big guys, biker types, you know.

Nothing was going to scare them. They told one of the staff members that they wanted him to recommend the scariest film we had in the store.

He walked them around the place, picked up some stuff to show them the Exorcist, Alien, the Omen, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

You know, all the stuff you'd think of when it comes to horror films from the time, but nothing was working for these guys.

They'd seen all that stuff, and none of it was scary enough for them.

So I'd been listening to this conversation, and I finally walked over and picked up a film off the rack.

I handed it to the biggest guy and told him, this is it.

Take this home and watch it, and if it's not scary

enough for you, I'll give you your money back when you return it. The guy came back the next day

and he handed me the case with the VHS tape in it. I asked him what he thought, and he just had this

look in his eye. Scared the shit out of all of us, he said. Seriously,

man, I was so freaked out. I barely slept last night. You were right. Gotta be the scariest film in the

store. He gave me that tape back, Skip said, and I don't think I ever saw him back in the store.

What was the movie? I asked him.

It was the changeling, he told me, the George C. Scott movie.

Yeah, I agreed.

That makes sense.

The changeling, directed by Peter Medek in 1980, is one of the greatest ghost stories ever made.

If you have a different opinion about it, you keep it to yourself, because I'm not interested in hearing about something you're obviously mistaken about.

The film stars George C. Scott as John Russell, a New York City composer who moves across the country to the Pacific Northwest after his wife and daughter are killed in a tragic auto accident.

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