Skeleton Key
Year: | 2005 |
Director: | Ian Softley |
Writer: | Ehren Kruger |
Cast: | Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard |
The usually shining Kate Hudson is downbeat and sombre as a young woman who takes a carers job for an old married couple deep in the bayous of Louisiana.
The old man (Hurt) is apparently comatose, and there's something strange and a bit sinister about his wife (Rowlands). Caroline (Hudson) finds herself in a classic scary movie scenario - strange things start to happen, then become more frequent and finally turn frightening. She finds herself mixed up in a morass of talismans, spells and the powers of voodoo, and there's more to the kindly wife and family lawyer (Sargaard) than meets the eye.
A pretty good twist ending, although I'd already heard about it so it wasn't unfortunately as much of a surprise as it could have been.
The only thing that really grated on me was Hudson's character. She was altogether too gruff, too presuming and too confrontational. It was doubtless done intentionally to make her a ballsier heroine but if a chick showed up at my house to look after my paralysed spouse and treated me like that, I'd put spells on her skinny white ass too.