Written by Ehren Kruger
Directed by Iain Softly
Luke/Justify: "Cecile? You all right?"
Caroline/Cecile: "I'm fine now, Justify."
Luke/Justify: "A fair bit harder than the lawyer, wasn't it?"
Caroline/Cecile: "It gets harder every time. They just don't believe like they used to. Gotta get 'em all riled up."
Going for something a tad more underrated on the horror front and I went for this movie from nearly twenty years ago. Sometimes being good at your job can really come back to get you in the worst way.
That's something that nurse Caroline Ellis (Kate Hudson) ended up learning in the worst way she found herself having to help elderly Violet Devereaux (Gena Rowlands) with her husband, Benjamin (John Hurt). The latter being a recent victim of a stroke after a mysterious encounter in the attic of their Southern homestead.
Except for the fact that no one can seemingly get into the attic as even the skeleton key that Caroline was given cannot open the attic. This naturally created some conflict between Caroline and the increasingly cagey Violet but Caroline seemed to have gained an ally in family estate's lawyer, Luke Marshall (Peter Sarsgaard) as well as her best friend, Jill Dupay (Joy Bryant).
The latter in particular introduced Caroline to a hoodoo women who gave her the tools to try and help Ben out of his paralysis. As the movie progressed there's a history lesson about former house slaves and hoodoo practitioners, Mama Cecile (Jeryl Prescott) and Papa Justify (Ronald McCall) along with the dangers of belief.
It turned out that being skeptical about the power of hoodoo was the actual life saver but the moment that Caroline's skepticism was shattered, she ended up becoming vulnerable to attack. For all of her efforts to save Ben, she ended up with exactly the same fate as him.
It's a particularly brutal ending with Caroline confined to Violet's body and now rendered in a stroke like condition alongside Ben while Mama Cecile and Papa Justify had both Caroline and Luke's bodies to continue their cycle of living forever. At some point, you'd think they'd just leave that house.
- What happened to Luke's soul? Did he end up in the mirror as well?
- We had a bit of a backstory about Caroline's parent, notably the relationship she had with her father.
- Standout music: Barefoot Dancing by Blackbud and Do Whatcha Wanna by ReBirth Brass Band.
- Chronology: 2000s Louisiana.
The Skeleton Key might have a few plot holes and gaps in logic but it's a decent enough horror flick with a suitably nasty ending for Caroline. The performances are solid enough to boot.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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