Peter Medak obituary

Film and television director who won plaudits for The Ruling Class, The Changeling and The Krays

In 2013, when Martin Scorsese compiled a brief list of his favourite horror films, he placed the eerie and overlooked 1980 ghost story The Changeling in the company of classics such as The Shining, The Exorcist and Psycho. Scorsese called it a “haunted house movie filled with sadness and dread”; Guillermo del Toro called it “a masterpiece”. Its director was the versatile British-Hungarian film-maker Peter Medak, who has died aged 88.

The Changeling concerns a composer (George C Scott) who is grieving the deaths of his wife and daughter in a road accident.