The Skeleton Key (2005)

A hospice nurse working at a spooky New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house's dark past.

Director:

Iain Softley

Writer:

Ehren Kruger

Stars:

Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, Peter Sarsgaard

4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kate Hudson	...	Caroline Ellis
Gena Rowlands	...	Violet Devereaux
John Hurt	...	Ben Devereaux
Peter Sarsgaard	...	Luke Marshall
Joy Bryant	...	Jill
Maxine Barnett	...	Mama Cynthia
Fahnlohnee R. Harris	...	Hallie (as Fahnlohnee Harris)
Marion Zinser	...	Bayou Woman
Deneen Tyler	...	Desk Nurse
Ann Dalrymple	...	C.N.A.
Trula M. Marcus	...	Nurse Trula (as Trula Marcus)
Tonya Staten	...	Nurse Audrey
Thomas Uskali	...	Robertson Thorpe (as Tom Uskali)
Jen Apgar	...	Madeleine Thorpe
Forrest Landis	...	Martin Thorpe

Storyline

A young woman helping care for an invalid in New Orleans finds herself caught in the middle of morbid going-ons centered around a group of Hoodoo practitioners.

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Plot Keywords:

hoodoo | attic | louisiana | key | skeleton key | 

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Taglines:

You will believe.

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, some partial nudity and thematic material

Details

Official Sites:

UIP [br] UIP [es]

Country:

USA Germany

Language:

English French

Release Date:

12 August 2005 (USA)

Also Known As:

Der verbotene Schlüssel

Filming Locations:

Bayou Gauche, Louisiana, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$43,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$103,646 (Hong Kong) (23 September 2005)

Gross:

$47,806,295 (USA) (21 October 2005)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, ShadowCatcher Entertainment, Double Feature Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

At the opening of the film, the book that Caroline is reading to the hospice patient is Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island." Toward the beginning of that work, Jim Hawkins is caring for the elderly Billy Bones after the man has a stroke. Caroline begins her ordeal in the same way: taking care of the elderly Ben Devereaux post-stroke.

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Goofs

When Caroline is giving Ben his bath, she drops both the soap and sponge into the bathtub water. When she comes back to the bathtub, the soap is still floating in the water, but the sponge has appeared on the rack over the tub.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Caroline Ellis: [reading from Treasure Island] I lost no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and we saw ourselves at once in a difficult and dangerous position. Something must speedily be resolved upon, and it occurred to us at last to go forth together and seek help in the neighboring hamlet. No sooner said than done. Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once into the gathering evening and the frosty fog. The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away, though out of view on the ...
[...]

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Connections

Followed by Skeleton Key 3: The Organ Trail (2011)

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Soundtracks

"Bounce That Thing"
Written by Torrey McKinley, Dustin Fleetwood, Roderick Harrison, Rosalyn Flot
Performed by 3rd Nfantry
Courtesy of No Jack Music

User Reviews

They Do that Hoodoo that they Do so...eh, Relatively Well

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.