The Skeleton Key Year: 2005 Director: Iain Softley Written by: Ehren Kruger Threat: Hoodoo Practitioners Weapon of Choice: Black Magic IMDb page:

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Rish's Reviews
I've never cared for Kate Hudson. Not at all, even in Almost Famous, which I do like. Something about the cuteness factor, or her supposed charm, I don't know. But it's strange: I liked her in this, even found her attractive. I wonder what's wrong with me.
Set in the swampy outskirts of Louisiana, TSK tells the story of Caroline (Kate Hudson), a hospice nurse who, fed up with the impersonal care of convalescent homes and haunted by her own father's death, moves into a crumbling plantation-era mansion to help with Ben Devereaux (John Hurt), who has suffered a debilitating stroke. Ben's wife, Violet (Gena Rowlands), protective of her husband, is initially suspicious of Caroline, but when Caroline discovers a secret room in the attic, and the macabre history of the house, it is she who becomes suspicious. Is Violet hiding a secret? Are there ghosts in the house? Was it a stroke that afflicts Ben Devereaux? And can black magic hurt you if you don't believe in it?
In my notes, I have phrases like "Not bad" and "Well done." I agree with both statements. It has an excellent cast and special effects that never detract from the story being told. I really enjoyed the film's setting and the idea of Voodoo versus Hoodoo, a word I'd never heard used outside of songs. I don't know that the Kruger script holds up 100%, but it certainly doesn't completely fall apart like several of his past works have.
There's an odd phenomenon I've discovered in recent years, where the trailer to a film ends up being better than the movie itself. I could name several films like this. But 2005 marks the first time (and White Noise marks the first film) that a trailer ended up being scarier than the movie itself. The Skeleton Key had a terrifying trailer--when I saw it recently at a screening of Cinderella Man, the woman sitting next to me shrieked and covered her eyes throughout the Skeleton Key preview, making me nervous and a little uncomfortable-- but oddly, is not terrifying at all.
I've railed enough against writer Ehren Kruger, who I've branded a very talented, if completely dishonest, screenwriter, but I thought he did fine job here, establishing a locale I knew nothing about but found fascinating, and creating a main character with palpable motivation behind her acts beyond just contrivance and/or stupidity.
And a lot will be made of the twist ending of the film. The best twists are those that shock you with their logic and seeming inevitabilty, even when you never suspected they were coming. The worst are the ones where it's completely ludicrous, defying logic and probability (I always use the example of the shitty new "Twilight Zone" where the woman was afraid to get on the bus, certain that it represents death, only to have Forrest Whitaker explain at the end that the bus was life, or the ending of David Fincher's The Game). Kruger excels at these kind of endings--you never would have guessed them because they couldn't have happened.
This is one of Kruger's better endings, striking me as pretty watertight (superior to Arlington Road's only in the way it was designed), but one that works better the less you dwell on it. I don't know how well it would hold up in a repeated viewing, but better than Scream 3 or Impostor or Reindeer Games. The O Henry endings of the original "Twilight Zone" worked because they were well-written, and also because in a twenty-six minute story, there was little wiggle room to ask questions (would "serve" really have the same double meaning in an alien language as it does in "To Serve Man?"). Kruger's work may be improving (though The Ring was infinitely better than The Ring 2), but he's a long ways down the ladder from Hitchcock and Shamalyan, the other two "twist" guys.
I've no idea what the budget was, but this felt like a small movie, a modest film, and in light of that, I think it was quite successful. It's not one I'm going to call everyone I know and demand that they see (like Sixth Sense, Shaun of the Dead, Eternal Sunshine, and oddly, I Know What You Did Last Summer), but the film was very solid, and I left having enjoyed myself.
Best Scare: the trailer, to be honest, but the atmospheric location of the flick (house and environment) was the closest it got to scares.
I'd Recommend It To: If it sounds good to you, I recommend it. If it's not your thing (let's say you like splatter or lots of scares), then pass on it.
Posted: October 27, 2005

Total Skulls: 18

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?