The Skeleton Key (2005)

The Skeleton Key (2005) is a very layered thriller/horror movie that will switch things up on you just when you think you have everything all figured out. I adore scary films like that. This definitely is not a run of the mill cheesy horror movie that you will become bored with, it's not predictable at all. It's just so refreshing to see a movie like this. Kate Hudson is good in her lead role, she tackles the dramatic sense of it well, she plays both a kind, compassionate and tough woman who becomes concerned that the old man she is caring for is being hurt by someone (something supernatural or maybe his wife (Gena Rowlands). That is another fine performance in this movie. Gena Rowlands. I absolutely loved her in this film! What strong, mysterious and interesting character she plays. Peter Sarsgaad is good too. The script is pretty well written, it has plenty of eerie creepiness and also a sense of good moral direction from Kate Hudson's character. I will not give away the ending, you'll just have to go and see it for yourself. But just suffice to say that the ending is more than satisfying. It's one of the best things about the film, it's just all out together so well. I 100% suggest watching The Skeleton Key if your a movie lover who enjoys watching good scary thrillers with a supernatural lean to it. 8/10.

Overall, this movie was good but nothing special. We've seen the narrative a hundred times. Young woman enters strange premises, strange things happen, young woman heroically investigates everything culminating in action and the supernatural. Now let's take a look at the ending.Was I expecting something better? Sometimes yes. I already guessed Hudson would be the victim, but I was also hoping all this hoodoo/voodoo nonsense was something to mess with her head to distract her from some very practical sinister evil. Scratch that. Hoodoo is real.Given that this was so far a generic horror/suspense, I was expecting Hudson to emerge victorious. The real ending is a bit better. It was more realistic. A girl from the north snooping around against her better judgment to leave and jumping at every hint of hoodoo tid- bit as 'evidence' when she in fact does not know anything about it is probably going to fail miserably. Kudos to the film for that.But what about the revelation that the perpetrators were Justify and his wife all along? That adds an element of disturbing to this flick like nothing else. Essentially the bankers lynched their own children. Is that making a statement about how it was foolish of them to resort to violence when they didn't know what they were up against? If so, that's highly objectionable. And the viewer is left with the sudden revelation that Justify and his wife were evil all along. Why is there nothing else in the movie hinting toward this? What was the point of telling us the black servants were mistreated? Would they have spared the banker's children if they weren't? They don't seem to have any qualms left about hijacking innocent women. Voodoo aside, its hard to believe they are just evil to the point of being psychopaths in that they are completely disinterested in whether their victims deserve this kind of end.

I love how the movies portray the backwoods of Louisiana to be wet, gatored-out danger zones of Voodoo, gas station dwelling creeps, and crumbling mansions — it's overtly ridiculous, but I'll be the first to admit that sometimes a little fried Southern spookiness is unbeatable. 1964's "Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte" emphasized madness and tangled itself up with Tennessee Williams-esque melodrama; 1981's "The Beyond" seemed to act as one big, inconceivable nightmare only cautioning Northerners to stay away from the South. Isn't it great how a setting can go from being a point of interest to a secondary character in a matter of seconds? How Gothic terror can seem slightly creepier as long as spells, potions, and psychological collapse are involved?The movie doing the Louisiana-based pigeonholing this time around is 2005's "The Skeleton Key", a shadow infused but ultimately safe horror movie that greatly depends on the star quality of Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, and John Hurt (the latter two hamming it up with the former emulating Deborah Kerr or Claire Bloom). It's passably entertaining, but there's something very been-there-done-that about it, either because of Hudson's character's unwillingness to hear out the handful of helpful hints to get out of the stereotyped Southern backwoods or because the "big reveal" is less shocking and more wince-inducing. Hudson convinces as Caroline Ellis, a young caretaker hired to serve the dying Ben Deveraux (Hurt). The victim of a crippling stroke, Ben cannot move or speak, but something in the air suggests that something other than mere bad health was responsible. The Deveraux household, it seems, has a long history, a history involving death, Hoodoo (not Voodoo), and other supernatural occurrences. Most, in their good senses, would get as far away from possible from the eerie, decaying mansion. Not Violet. Despite the fact that the matriarch of the home, Violet (Rowlands), is a suspicious figure, despite the fact that Caroline's skeleton key opens everything in the house besides a shady room in the attic, despite the fact that locals warn her that the Deveraux estate is not one to be trusted, she goes out of her way to not only commit to job, but also to solve the mystery that surrounds her new job. Tsk tsk.The biggest problem with "The Skeleton Key" lies in the fact that most people with common sense would leave its ghastly backwood setting in a hasty sprint — Caroline, on the other hand, figures it would be best to put her life on the line for the sake of curiosity. But curiosity kills cats, and "The Skeleton Key" works on a premise we never quite believe. There's no way someone in Caroline's position would stay as long as she does. I wouldn't. And as the film spirals into a disturbing ending that puts its lead heroine in grave danger, we aren't thrilled, rather smirking that this wouldn't have happened if she would have just let her intuition shut up for a second.But "The Skeleton Key" is made with a great deal of competence, and that, that, I can admire. It's B-movie material, but because Softley pretends it's better than it is, scares do make their way onto the scene and are delivered effectively. The mansion is a perfect balance of Gothic chilliness and candlelit spooks, seemingly gorgeous by day; the way Hurt's silent performance is completely made of unfiltered dread only awakens our own. And Rowlands, chewing the scenery like a "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" era Bette Davis, is a deliciously theatrical villain. I just wish "The Skeleton Key" was more original; while well-made, it's nothing we haven't seen before.

The insipid Kate Hudson (Goldie Hawn's daughter) stars in this half-baked slice of Southern Gothic as a nurse who winds up at a creepy and run-down old plantation to care for a seriously disabled man. Her job goes well at first, but she soon begins to ask questions about her controlling employer (the man's wife) as well as the secrets hidden in the locked attic.And so we have THE SKELETON KEY, which effectively manages some atmospheric moments but spoils them with barely-decent writing in which everything is forced to play out to its predictable climax. In that respect it's a little like WHAT LIES BENEATH, an equally play-it-safe thriller that seems to have been aimed at bored housewives more than anything else.The inclusion in the plot of themes of voodoo and immortality is interesting, but the execution is only so-so. It doesn't help that the cast is weak; Hudson is boring, Peter Sarsgaard is weak, and only Gena Rowlands seems to be channelling the Bette Davis spirit of old. John Hurt is the best actor here, but he's pretty much wasted in a role where he's given very little to do. THE SKELETON KEY deserves commendation for trying something different, but in the end there's not much here.