The Skeleton Key

The Skeleton Key (2005) takes place at a plantation house in Louisiana. Caroline, working as a carer in New Orleans, comes out to look after an old man who has had a stroke. His wife gives her a key that opens every door in the house. There is a room in the attic that this key will not open. The subject is hoodoo, a practice with African roots in Louisiana, and the film treats it not as exotic decoration, as Hollywood horror usually does, but as a system of rules. The central idea is that hoodoo only works on someone who believes in it, and that rule is the entire mechanism of the ending. Iain Softley directed from a screenplay by Ehren Kruger. Kate Hudson plays Caroline, Gena Rowlands the wife and John Hurt the old man. It was shot in Louisiana, and the plantation house and the swamp are real locations. The turn at the end is counted among the more discussed finales in the genre, and on a careful rewatch the clues are visibly placed. It runs 104 minutes. Good for: atmospheric horror, Southern gothic, and twist endings. Less good for: there are few jumps and the pace is slow, so there is nothing here for anyone wanting fast horror. Its Black characters are largely written as mysterious figures, and that depiction is a problem. The middle section repeats itself.