Is Apple TV’s New Show Too Scary for You, Someone Who Only Signed Up for Ted Lasso ?
For die-hards, no horror movie can be too scary. But for you, a wimp, the wrong one can leave you miserable. Never fear, scaredies, because Slate’s Scaredy Scale is here to help. We’ve put together a highly scientific and mostly spoiler-free system for rating new horror releases, comparing them with classics along a 10-point scale. And because not everyone is scared by the same things—some viewers can’t stand jump scares, while others are haunted by more psychological terrors or can’t stomach arterial spurts—it breaks down each release’s scares across three criteria: suspense, spookiness, and gore.
This time we’re breaking down the newest fantasy horror show on Apple TV+, The Changeling, starring LaKeith Stanfield. Adapted from Victor LaValle’s award-winning novel of the same name, The Changeling follows a new father, Apollo (Stanfield), as he seeks to solve mysteries surrounding the sudden disappearance of his wife, Emma (Clark Backo). An interesting departure for showrunner Kelly Marcel—whose writing credits include mainstream movies like Saving Mr. Banks, Cruella, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage—The Changeling delves deep into the eerie underbelly of spirituality. But just how deep? Let’s find out!
For all of my fellow jumpy friends, The Changeling is pretty easy on the nerves. It does employ a couple of jump scares throughout each episode, but they’re usually mild. In fact, the show is pretty deft at ratcheting up the tension in ways that pay off for an extended period of time, as opposed to the ephemeral effect of a quick shock. Sometimes a mundane action—someone merely dropping their bag, or banging on a table during a lively discussion—will startle you during the gripping lead-up to a thematic reveal or important plot development, rather than having one jolt release all of a scene’s electricity.
Given that The Changeling is billed as fantasy as much as horror, it’s unsurprising that the show reaches for a tone that’s more unsettling than outright grotesque. There are a few grisly moments, like one that leaves a character with a bloody “zygomatic orbital fracture,” aka broken cheekbone, but, on the whole, the show finds less crude ways to skeeve the audience out.
For all of the lower scores The Changeling has earned thus far, this is where it makes up for it, which is a testament to not only the direction—which is handled by a few creative minds, including Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim, Beyoncé’s “Formation” video) and Jonathan van Tulleken (Top Boy)—but also the performances of Stanfield and Backo. As a Black woman (and I would imagine the same goes for parents), it’s hard to unbiasedly judge how unsettling this adaptation is. The show is partly about the way that something beautiful, like the birth of a child, can slowly devolve into the single most horrific thing a parent, and spouse, could ever experience. However, the show is also partly about the particular horrors faced by Black mothers: The sacrifices Black mothers are forced to make for their children as men take advantage of them, the way Black mothers (who are at a greater risk of postpartum depression than white women but receive less treatment) can’t seem to get the help they need from a system that doesn’t take them as seriously, and even, simply, the increased dangers of childbirth for Black women. (Emma, for one, is forced to give birth in a creepy stalled subway car, which made me yell “Absolutely not!”)
Sure, there are plenty of shows out there that will make you grit your teeth harder and leap higher out of your chair, but despite the show’s fantastical nature, The Changeling will leave you with real and harrowing questions about parenthood and the limitations of familial bonds.
What’s perhaps even more terrifying is that the answers to these questions may not exist in the real world. And yet, The Changeling believes in love in even the darkest of times, making it a worthwhile and mostly smooth watch even for most scaredies.
