The Skeleton Key (B)

Being nosy is bad, m'kay?

As I often do, I randomly picked a movie I hadn't seen on NetFlix and got to watching it. I hadn't heard of The Skeleton Key when it was released in 2005, but it's got a pretty experienced cast and the film direction was very good. Though not as frightfully scary as I might've liked, it has a number of creepy moments, and though I saw the twist at the end coming, it was a pretty good story.

Caroline Ellis (Kate Hudson) is a hospice nurse in New Orleans who gets fed up with her job in a clinic and applies for a position as a private nurse at a residence about an hour outside of the city. Her friend, Jill (Joy Bryant), warns her against taking the position given it's out in the swamps. Of course Caroline doesn't listen and interviews for the position.

The house is an old plantation-style home on a large plot of land. When Caroline arrives there, she meets Luke Marshall (Peter Sarsgaard), the family's estate lawyer, who then introduces her to the family. Violet (Gena Rowlands) and Ben Devereaux (John Hurt). Ben recently suffered a stroke, and is more or less incapable of caring for himself. At first, Violet is reluctant to hire Caroline, but Luke manages to change her mind.

Caroline moves in with the Devereauxs. Soon after, Violet gives her a skeleton key that will open every door in the house. While fetching a box of seeds for Violent, Caroline discovers a strange door in the attic that the key doesn't appear to open. When she asks Violet about the room, she's told that the key has never opened that particular door. Later, when Caroline investigates further, she manages to open the door. Inside, she finds all manner of ritualistic paraphernalia that is revealed to be related to Hoodoo.

When pressed, Violet reveals that 90 years ago, the room once belonged to a pair of Hoodoo practitioners, Mama Cecile (Jeryl Prescott) and Papa Justify (Ronald McCall). When the two were discovered performing a Hoodoo ritual with the two children of the family that owned the home at the time. The family and their friends lynched the two, killing them, and Violet believes their ghosts still haunt the old house. She gives this as a reason that there are no mirrors in the place, for the ghostly servants can be seen in them.

Though Ben starts out as a catatonic, he begins to try and break through his shell. Caroline comes to suspect that Ben is pleading for help, despite his inability to communicate verbally. She decides that he is the victim of a Hoodoo spell, and seeks advice on how to reverse it. Caroline performs a Hoodoo ritual on him, hoping that Ben's belief will put an end to what she feels is a psychosomatic condition.

After the ritual, Ben indicates that Violet is to blame for his condition. Unfortunately, Violet arrives and takes control of the situation before Caroline can finish. Caroline goes to Luke to air her suspicions about Violet, but he doesn't believe her. She attempts to change his mind, and reveals that she intends to get Ben out of the house and away from Violet. From this point, the movie begins to draw towards its inevitable conclusion.

One is old, one is young, but both are stubborn as sin.

Having expected the film to be another NetFlix stinker, I was pleasantly surprised by its quality. Though it isn't groundbreaking by any means, it is well-made and the performances are great. I didn't even recognize John Hurt at first, which was sort of funny as he's one of my favorite actors. Kate Hudson does a good job in her role, as does the rest of the cast. Really, I have few complaints about the film at all, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a horror movie that isn't really all that scary.

Therein lies my only complaint, really. Though the movie possessed a number of creepy moments, I was hoping for more of a ghost story. While there are elements of a ghost story in The Skeleton Key, it's not really that kind of tale. Despite this, the Hoodoo angle was well done and added a bit of tension to the proceedings. Caroline's motivations for doing what she does are also understandable, especially considering that anyone else would have probably quit the job once things got too strange.