The Skeleton Key (2005) is an odd little film - a small, ordinary Southern Gothic horror with an absurdly over-talented cast.
It stars Kate Hudson as a hospice nurse in New Orleans. Her father died while she was away, and she seems to be compensating. She gets a job way out in Terrebonne Parish, at a creepy old mansion surrounded by oaks, Spanish moss, and swamp. It is owned by aging Southern belle Gena Rowlands (!), who is having trouble caring for her husband, John Hurt (!!), mostly paralyzed by a stroke. Rowlands doesn't think a yankee like Hudson can understand the house, but their lawyer, Peter Sarsgaard convinces her and Hudson to try it out. He's a pretty minor character, but has a certain smarmy charm, like Tom Hanks in Volunteers.
Rowlands is pretty antagonistic, but gives Hudson a skeleton key, which opens every lock in the house (which brought to mind The Others, with all the locking and unlocking). She doesn't exactly forbid Hudson from going up into the attic, but discourages it. When Hudson does go up, she hears noises from behind a door that her skeleton key won't unlock. On a later trip, she gets in and finds a hoodoo room, full of candles and chalk diagrams on the floor.
All this time, she is getting the idea that John Hurt is afraid of his wife Rowlands. He can't talk, can barely move his eyes, but they sure look haunted.
I won't talk about how it all turns out, except to mention Burnt Offerings - even to the creepy presence in the attic. I will just say that this was not a bad horror PG horror movie, not scary enough to freak me out, but twisty enough to keep me interested.
But I can't figure out how Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, and Peter Sarsgaard wound up in this little trifle. (OK, I don't know if Sarsagaard is that surprising.) It has some nice atmosphere, and some arty camera angles, but never looks like either a "big" picture or like "arthouse". Are these actors all getting to be past it and have to appear on the equivalent of Love Boat now?
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