The Skeleton Key (US 2005)

http://www.theskeletonkeymovie.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397101/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeleton_Key
WATCH....
http://10starmovies.com/Watch-Movies-Online/The_Skeleton_Key_2005/

Caroline is a twenty-five-year-old hospice worker who cares for the ailing and the elderly, a job designed to atone for her own mistake for ignoring her dying father in the past, when she had been a rock 'n' roll manager. After her latest charge passes away, Caroline takes a job in Louisiana, caring for Ben, a stroke-victim who is bed-ridden and cannot speak. But Caroline becomes suspicious of the house, and Ben's cold wife, Violet only adds to the creepy atmosphere....

Horror movies have become a dime a dozen in the past few years. The watchable ones seem to fall into two categories of late: misguided psychological thrillers headlined by a consummate actress (witness Naomi Watts in "The Ring 2" or Jennifer Connelly in "Dark Water") or over the top slasher/gore-fests with serious kitsch value (witness Romero's enjoyable zombie flick "Land of the Dead" or Rob Zombie's sadistic "Devil's Rejects"). All of the rest have pretty much been unbearable cliché-ridden hack jobs ("White Noise," "Darkness Falls," etc...)

Oddly enough, "The Skeleton Key" doesn't fall into any of these categories and it comes across as a breath of fresh air, an old-fashioned throwback to the traditional Gothic mystery thriller, where a pretty female outsider (Kate Hudson acquitting herself rather nicely here as the hospice nurse traveling deep into the Bayou to care for an apparent stroke victim) moves into a big old house/castle that just might be haunted. The director and screenwriter start things slowly, and do a nice job of creating a realistic setting before letting all the mumbo-jumbo slowly and effectively creep in. Gena Rowlands and John Hurt (immobile and mute for most of the film) are fairly good in their respective roles as the married couple with more than just skeletons in their closets. We've seen this stuff all before, but it's done fairly well here with no sense of flash or pretensions, and as silly (and potentially offensive) as all this Hoodoo in the Bayou stuff is, the audience is treated to a twist ending that makes perfect sense in the context we have been given. This isn't a twist ending for twisting sake, but a fitting conclusion to the story.

"The Skeleton Key" tries to remind people of classics like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Others." It may not ultimately hold a candle to those films, but it's a very entertaining way to spend a few hours.




A 'horror' film by Iain Softley, 2005.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0812200/

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Category:

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• The Skeleton Key (US 2005)
• Iain Softley
• horror
• mystery
• voodoo
• ghosts
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• dark films

[accel103]

one of the few movies ive ever seen with a twisted, scerewed up and unhappy ending....tht old lady is slick

[ma9905]

@Bandaint what is fu through?

[Bandaint]

@SanDiegoInnOut The movie itself is amazing. The ending is just a big fu though.

[SanDiegoInnOut]

My favorite part is 1:48 . The voices are really haunting! They give me chills!