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The Filmmaker Behind One of Cinema’s Most Chilling Ghost Stories Has Passed Away
Peter Medak, the director who gave horror fans the 1980 ghost story The Changeling, died on October 27 in Los Angeles at the age of 88, as first reported by Deadline. His family announced the news, saying he passed peacefully, and did not share a cause of death.
For horror audiences, Medak’s name will always be tied to The Changeling, in which George C. Scott plays a grieving composer who moves into a sprawling Seattle-area mansion and finds it occupied by a restless child’s spirit. Built on slow-burning dread rather than gore, the film swept eight Genie Awards in Canada, including best motion picture, and its rolling rubber ball, séance sequence and creaking stairway remain touchstones for the haunted house films that followed.
Born in Budapest in 1937, Medak grew up under Hungary’s Communist regime, which jailed his father and barred him from school. He escaped to England in 1956, worked his way up through the British studio system, including a stint as an assistant director on Hammer’s 1962 The Phantom of the Opera, and went on to direct 27 features, among them The Ruling Class, The Krays, Let Him Have It and Romeo Is Bleeding.
His television résumé was just as busy, with dozens of episodes across series like Homicide: Life on the Street, The Wire and Breaking Bad. He is survived by his four children and five grandchildren.
Director: Peter Medak (1937–2026)
Notable Horror Credit: The Changeling (1980), starring George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere and Melvyn Douglas
Other Features: The Ruling Class, The Krays, Let Him Have It, Romeo Is Bleeding
Source: Reporting and confirmation via Deadline.