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The Skeleton Key: A little bit of magic

The studios are starting to clean house, throwing all sorts of things in to theaters and audiences can expect the next month or so to be filled with hit or miss fare. Consider “The Skeleton Key” to be a modest hit. While nowhere near as appealing as a “The Sixth Sense,” this film gives viewers a spooky tale about voodoo in the bayou, which is not a horror genre that is used too often.

Kate Hudson stars as Caroline, a hospice worker who takes a live-in job out in Terrebone Parish in Louisiana. The man she is caring for had a stroke in the attic of an old plantation home about a month ago and his wife, Violet, played masterfully by the always good Gena Rowlands, is suspicious of Caroline, or really anyone she sees as trying to usurp her in her are for her husband. Violet gives Caroline a skeleton key, which can open any door in the house and Caroline gives it a try, soon finding one door in the attic that it doesn’t open. After picking the lock, Caroline finds a hoodoo room, a room filled with voodoo records, shruken heads and really odd stuff.

Lots of weird things start happening around the house and though Caroline doesn’t believe in voodoo, she suspects that both Violet and her husband do. Caroline also starts to suspect that Violet has nefarious plans for her and may be behind her husband’s illness. Telling you more would ruin the various surprises that screenwriter Ehren Kruger and director Ian Softley have in store for the audience.

“The Skeleton Key” has a lot of the trademark jumps of many horror films. When the music swells or the camera pulls in very close to a charatcer walking slowly around a darkened room, you can be assured that something or someone will jump out at them. Where Kruger and Softley surpass these cliches is by using lighting and various film stocks to give the film a darker feel. They are also assisted by a terrific cast and a perfect setting. Hudson and Rowlands both do a very good job, as does Peter Saarsgard as Violet’s attorney and Caroline’s possible love interest and nothing could be creepier than a huge mansion in an isolated and dark swamp.

There is a big twist ending and that should have audiences speading the good word about the film. As for problems, they are very few and minor. For instance, the pacing could have been a little better early on and the twists leading up to the big one could have been a little more subtle. Overall, “The Skeleton Key” was a nice surprise and should thrill audiences at the theater and on DVD for a long time.

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