Saturday Night Movie Review: The Skeleton Key

Saturday, November 19, 2005

This week's Saturday Night Movie is a new movie released on DVD just this week. I had the fortunate opportunity to review this new DVD for Blogcritics. My review will appear on that site in the days to come.

The Skeleton Key is a supernatural thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat for over ninety minutes, and then pushes you off the edge with a surprise ending I never even saw coming. I wasn't fortunate enough to catch this film when it hit the big screen, but I'm glad I've had the opportunity to check this movie out on DVD.

The film tells the story of hospice worker, Caroline, played wonderfully here by actress Kate Hudson. She answers an ad placed in a local paper looking for a hospice care worker for a family out in the bayou of Louisiana, an hour from where she lives in New Orleans. She never expects when she takes on the position caring for an elderly man in his last month of life would forever change hers, but that is exactly what happens here.

The movie then takes us on a journey into the hoodoo subculture prevalent in the bayous. As Caroline learns more about it, so do we. Spooky occurrences fill this movie, including the story of what happened to two servants in the house many years ago. These servants are quite important to the story. Caroline believes the answers to the house's mysteries lie in the locked room in the attic, which she finds soon after she moves into the home. The skeleton key the mistress of the house gives her doesn't open the door, and it should open every door in the house, including that one. This raises her curiosity, and she begins to question things. The more Caroline learns about hoodoo, the more she believes, and this is what seals her fate.

This movie in my mind is one of the best supernatural thrillers I've seen since the Sixth Sense. Kate Hudson and Gena Rowlands both provide outstanding performances in this film, and the end of the movie will definitely shock you and leave you wanting more. The movie was shot in Louisiana, both in the bayous and New Orleans. It was a bit sad to see this area, since we now know that much of it was ravaged when Hurricane Katrina hit a few months ago.

Not only is the movie excellent, but also the DVD is a real deal that you would want to at least consider adding to your collection if you're a fan of the movie. It is chocked full of bonus features that make this definitely worth the buy. Not only do you have behind the scenes features and over twenty minutes of deleted scenes from the movie, the DVD also contains a look at the hoodoo/voodoo culture, a documentary of the music in the film, and so much more. Definitely pick up this DVD for a good movie and a little bit of knowledge that will take you even further into the story of the film.