The Skeleton Key
Three Stars
by Norman Wilner, Zap2it.com
"The Skeleton Key" is a horror movie made in the old-school mode of shadows and suggestion, where the creepy things you think you see are far scarier than a faceful of digital effects.
And, for the most part, it works well enough. Nothing truly shocking or revolutionary, either in Ehren Kruger's compact screenplay or in Iain Softley's efficient direction, but it hits its marks and throws its curves ... and yes, you will jump.
Kate Hudson plays Caroline, a hospice worker in New Orleans who takes a job caring for a disabled old man (John Hurt) in a huge bayou mansion about an hour outside of town. She's barely met the guy when the freaky stuff starts, and soon enough she's convinced his hovering wife (Gena Rowlands) is trying to do him further harm.
But what does it have to do with the local superstitions, or the people who lived in the house some nine decades earlier? How much does the couple's helpful estate lawyer (Peter Sarsgaard) know? And if she's figured this out, it can't be long before they know she knows ... can it?
All these questions are answered, with much frantic activity, in the final reel -- and even if you figure out the whys and wherefores beforehand, the how of it is nicely handled. (The middle of the movie seems to be missing at least one crucial scene, though.) And the actors are having a good time -- Hudson hits her marks more convincingly than she has in her last couple of romantic comedies, and Rowlands walks the line between menace and self-parody very nicely. You want a spooky movie with a minimum of gore and a maximum of atmosphere, this will do just fine.
Universal's enhanced-widescreen DVD supports the feature with an assortment of supplements that arrive bearing an unintended sadness, since they spend so much time detailing the Louisiana locations, including the city of New Orleans and the outlying Terrebonne Parish, which were devastated by Hurricane Katrina just three weeks after "The Skeleton Key" opened in theaters. (Softley's audio commentary was recorded before the disaster.)
The history and culture of New Orleans is discussed, and praised, in several of the disc's production featurettes, which explore local culture touchstones like hoodoo, the blues and the history of plantations. There's a look at the antipodean house that serves as the movie's principal location, and even a three-minute bit in which one of the movie's bit players tells us how to make the perfect gumbo.
The disc also includes 20 minutes of deleted and expanded scenes, with Softley's optional commentary; additional atmosphere comes in the form of short segments in which John Hurt reads from the oral history "Voices of Slavery," Kate Hudson shares a paranormal experience and Gena Rowlands offers up a love spell.
