Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an early review of SKELETON KEY starring the yummy Kate Hudson... Now, horror flicks involving voodoo tend to kinda suck, don't they? Minus some notable exceptions, of course... Well, I really dig SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW, love me some WHITE ZOMBIE and CHILD'S PLAY, so I'm hoping I end up digging this flick, but I'm also braced for a disappointing movie, after all I'm not a fan of Ehren Kruger as a screenwriter, but he has done a couple flicks I like (ARLINGTON ROAD and THE RING.), so... Who knows? Anyway, enough of this, check out the review below from someone has seen the damn thing! The spoilers are lite until you get to the end, which is marked. Enjoy!
Hey you AICN folks,
Caught a showing of The Skeleton Key last night. Here's some words, grouped into sentences, that form a shitty review:
THE SKELETON KEY
Another month, another PG-13 pseudo-horror movie that doesn't really satisfy. The basic gist of Skeleton Key has nurse Kate Hudson giving up her job at a New Orleans hospice (because she's sick of seeing people DIE, dammit) and head out to the swamps to fill a post as a home carer for stroke-stricken John Hurt. Hurt's wife Gena Rowlands isn't too keen on Hudson's appointment and warns her that "she doesn't understand the house, only I understand the house." Whatever the hell that means.
Soon enough, Hawn Jr is snooping around the attic, where she uncovers a few dirty secrets that imply maybe Hurt's stroke isn't as straightforward as she thought. Throw in Peter Sarsgaard (horribly underused here) as the family's mildly creepy lawyer and some mumbo-jumbo about "hoodoo" (which is like voodoo, but with a 'h' and less religious, apparently) and you have the perfect recipe for… tedium.
That's not to say Skeleton Key doesn't have some stuff going for it. The score (by Ed Shearmur, who also soundtracked Sky Captain and, uh, Species 2) is authentically "New Orleans-ish", and for a while the film does a good job of cranking up the what's-behind-the-locked-door kind of tension. On top of this, it has two major selling points in: i) Kate Hudson wet, and ii) Kate Hudson naked. But put your pieces away, gents, because it's all very tastefully done and you don't get to see much apart from a brief side-glance of tit. Hudson herself is given little to do other than look mildly concerned about the nonsensical plot, and use the analogy that looking after Hurt makes up for her missing out on looking after her dying dad.
Sadly, Skeleton Key blows its wad in the final act and just descends into silliness. Ehren "I Fucked The Scream Trilogy Up Real Good" Kruger's script doesn't really know where to go once the big reveal has been carried out, and the film just kind of meanders to its close with some running about and a bit of shouting in a darkened house. And – SPOILER ALERT – anyone who saw Fallen is going to be in for a major dose of deja-voodoo (ouch).
All in all, Skeleton Key has little to recommend it, other than as a disposable piece of date movie fluff (provided your date is a big wuss and has never seen a horror movie before).
If this is of use, you can call me Neth. Because it's my name.
