The Skeleton Key is set in Lousiana where twenty five year old Caroline Ellis (Kate Hudson) works as a nurse, she applies for a job at a large plantation just outside New Orleans where the owner Ben Devereaux (John Hurt) has just suffered a stroke & is paralysed & unable to speak. Caroline gets the job of looking after him but has to contend with Ben's sinister wife Violet (Gena Rowlands) whom Caroline comes to believe made Ben the way he is & he never had a stroke at all. The large plantation house holds many secrets & is steeped in legend & superstition regarding previous owners & their unfortunate fates. Caroline becomes to believe that Violet is using a hoodoo spell on Ben to keep him the way he is, the only question Caroline needs answered is why...
Co-produced & directed by Iain Softley this fairly textured horror thriller with strong supernatural themes actually turned out better than I was expecting & is a reasonable enough way to pass 100 odd minutes. Set in the culturally & scenically rich Lousiana with it's dense swamps, rife superstitions regarding voodoo & hoodoo, huge mysterious creepy plantation mansions & shops where magic trinkets & rituals are sold The Skeleton Key utilises all these things & weaves a pretty compelling horror story around them. The one thing that stands out in The Skeleton Key is the lack of any incident or action, sure there are all those 'fake scares' like people jumping out from the dark, creaking doors & loud noises suddenly interrupting silence but not that much actually happens as it builds it's story & atmosphere towards a surprisingly downbeat twist ending. There aren't that many big budget Hollywood flicks that I can think of from recent years with such a downer of an ending made worse by the fact that Caroline is a well fleshed out character who ends up rather likable for trying to be kind & do the right thing by other people. The pace is sedate but if you can get into the story as I did then that won't matter, you will certainly stick with it to see where it goes. The story kept me interested, the character's are all distinctive & well fleshed out & that ending which shuns the usual happy Hollywood climax felt right if just not that uplifting. Better than I expected but I doubt I would ever want to watch it again & it's nowhere near as good as Angel Heart (1987) which is just about the best supernatural voodoo based horror thriller set in & around the Louisiana swamps, myths & culture ever made.
Although the film has a muted colour palette this was certainly intentional & it looks really moody with lots of scenes lit by natural light sources rather than artificial ones, candle light in the house for instance rather than electric bulbs or the moon during exterior shots. The house is kind of creepy & adds good atmosphere to the production while there are quite a few of those 'fake scares' already mentioned they don't do any harm. The violence & gore levels are zero, there's a brief dream sequence of someone having their lips sewn together but that's it. The Skeleton key relies on storytelling & mood for it's chills & scares rather than violence or gore or CGI computer effects of which there is virtually none.
The IMDb reckons The Skeleton Key had a budget of about $43,000,000 which sounds an awful lot of money for a film where not that much actually happens. Shot in & around Louisiana this has great production values & looks really nice throughout. The acting is good especially from the leads including Kate Hudson although John Hurt doesn't get to do much other than lie there.
The Skeleton Key is a good solid horror thriller set in the swamps of Louisiana that isn't on par with the likes of Angel Heart but is watchable enough for what it is & is a worthy rental but maybe not worth buying as I am not sure about the re-watch value here.
Co-produced & directed by Iain Softley this fairly textured horror thriller with strong supernatural themes actually turned out better than I was expecting & is a reasonable enough way to pass 100 odd minutes. Set in the culturally & scenically rich Lousiana with it's dense swamps, rife superstitions regarding voodoo & hoodoo, huge mysterious creepy plantation mansions & shops where magic trinkets & rituals are sold The Skeleton Key utilises all these things & weaves a pretty compelling horror story around them. The one thing that stands out in The Skeleton Key is the lack of any incident or action, sure there are all those 'fake scares' like people jumping out from the dark, creaking doors & loud noises suddenly interrupting silence but not that much actually happens as it builds it's story & atmosphere towards a surprisingly downbeat twist ending. There aren't that many big budget Hollywood flicks that I can think of from recent years with such a downer of an ending made worse by the fact that Caroline is a well fleshed out character who ends up rather likable for trying to be kind & do the right thing by other people. The pace is sedate but if you can get into the story as I did then that won't matter, you will certainly stick with it to see where it goes. The story kept me interested, the character's are all distinctive & well fleshed out & that ending which shuns the usual happy Hollywood climax felt right if just not that uplifting. Better than I expected but I doubt I would ever want to watch it again & it's nowhere near as good as Angel Heart (1987) which is just about the best supernatural voodoo based horror thriller set in & around the Louisiana swamps, myths & culture ever made.
Although the film has a muted colour palette this was certainly intentional & it looks really moody with lots of scenes lit by natural light sources rather than artificial ones, candle light in the house for instance rather than electric bulbs or the moon during exterior shots. The house is kind of creepy & adds good atmosphere to the production while there are quite a few of those 'fake scares' already mentioned they don't do any harm. The violence & gore levels are zero, there's a brief dream sequence of someone having their lips sewn together but that's it. The Skeleton key relies on storytelling & mood for it's chills & scares rather than violence or gore or CGI computer effects of which there is virtually none.
The IMDb reckons The Skeleton Key had a budget of about $43,000,000 which sounds an awful lot of money for a film where not that much actually happens. Shot in & around Louisiana this has great production values & looks really nice throughout. The acting is good especially from the leads including Kate Hudson although John Hurt doesn't get to do much other than lie there.
The Skeleton Key is a good solid horror thriller set in the swamps of Louisiana that isn't on par with the likes of Angel Heart but is watchable enough for what it is & is a worthy rental but maybe not worth buying as I am not sure about the re-watch value here.