Click on image to order
(Widescreen Edition) (2005)
Starring: Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands
Director: Iain Softley Rating 
A
Chiller from the US Home of Voodoo, October 2, 2006
This is the first film
I watched three times in a row-and found something new & enjoyable in it
each time. Granted it was on pay-per-view, but I definitely got my moneys worth
the first time. I watched it the second time because I liked it so much the
first time, and the third to see just how they put it all together and to watch
the subtle acting nuances. Gena Rowlands deserved an Oscar nomination for her
performance-as did John Hurt in his virtually speechless role.
The action takes place in a parish (county) outside New Orleans in a suitably
creepy, crumbling, ante bellum mansion. Kate Hudson plays a nursing assistant
hired to take care of a terminally ill and completely paralyzed man (John Hurt)
and help out his dominatingly sinister wife
(Gena Rowland.) The
secrets of hoodoo (a sort of mix of voodoo with added European and Early
American elements thrown in) that are hidden in the attic begin to draw the
nursing assistant into a supernatural plot aimed against both herself and her
patient.
[An old vinyl recording of a secret ritual by a pivotal character, conjure man
"Papa Justify," lends authenticity to the atmosphere of dark spells
& folk occultism underlying the film. The recording is mesmerizing both in
its archaic text & almost rap like beat. It is also interesting in its
appeal to "the Lord" to carry out evil intent.]
I lived in New Orleans and spent time in the outer districts with people who
still believed in and/or practiced hoodoo, and THE SKELETON KEY captured this
part of a dying Americana that exists nowhere else but in the mists of
Louisiana.
Review: JEFarrow
Updated 10/07