The Skeleton Key
Plot:
A young health care worker takes a job tending care to an elderly stroke victim. She becomes more and more apprehensive about her new work, as her patient seems terrified of his own wife. Adding a few meatballs to the tension soup- the existence of a mysterious locked room in the attic.
Comments:
I’ve noticed something lately. “Horror” is big in Hollywood right now. Ever since 1999’s asinine gaijin mangling of ‘The Ring’ managed to score some serious box-office wampum. This has led to a huge surge in the production of mainstream American “horror” movies. You’ll forgive the affected quotation marks, but the timid clichéd properties being turned out at the moment have as little to do with actual visceral horror as the cookie cutter blood+tits slasher films of the 80’s, or the winking, snarky post ‘Scream’ clutter of the late 90’s. And just like the shallow, muddled mess that inspired them, they have all been uniformly mediocre.
Yeah, I know, I’m a bit of a snob. I’m sorry but I just can’t get all hot and
bothered about this limp pabulum. I’m tired of paint-by-numbers productions
filled with faddish young stars. Say what you will about the old guard of
Hollywood- actors like Nicholson, Pfeiffer and Ford; they may have been
“glamorous” but they had actual personalities to back up their pretty faces.
Anyone heard from Sarah Michelle Geller lately?
Well hey! That pissy little rant o’ mine added a little more length to this review. That’s pretty good, seeing as I don’t have much too say about ’Skeleton Key’. Well, I actually do have one thing to say to the movie itself.
STOP THROWING OLD LADIES AT ME!
It really is embarrassing, the level of cheap scare tactic employed in this production. If the filmmakers had used any level of subtlety in their presentation, this movie could have turned out to be quite entertaining. Unfortunately, the director simply doesn’t trust us to know when we are supposed to be scared. Example-our heroine turns a corner, and there’s an old woman standing there.
Soundtrack:
“Bwam!”
Yes, whenever something slightly ooky begins
happening the movie starts beating us about the head with noise. The film is
filled with the same type of artificial jump scenes that you’d find in those
cruddy little Dark Castle flicks. This is a bloody shame, because the film is
better than this. (Or at least, it should have been.) The acting is decent enough.
Despite my odd whining Kate Hudson is talented enough to carry her role. John
Hurt is simply excellent. Playing a paralyzed, mute character, he manages to
convey true terror using only his eyes and a few tremulous movements. I’ve never
seen better physical acting since the days of Lon Chaney. (My god, I’m an old fart! I'm in my 20‘s, how did this
happen?)
The direction is adequate, which is why I was so disappointed in the film. It’s adequate but not exemplary or memorable in any way. The story is ok enough, and the cast is talented, but the material just isn’t presented very well. A note: I found the movie to be much too dark (in some scenes I could barely tell what scary thing I was supposed to be looking at) however I saw this at a drive in, so I don’t really know if this is an inherent flaw in the film itself. There are some very disturbing scenes (mostly centered around the contents of the secret room itself) but the really effective bits are lifted from other films such as 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘The Evil Dead’ . (Yes, I know, those fall into the category of homage. But the same folks who might castigate me for not recognizing this probably spared no time in pissing and moaning about how derivative the ‘Amityville Horror’ remake was.)
The film is written well enough, but it’s not truly gripping. Viewing the
trailer for ‘Skeleton’ might give a person the impression that the film is a
creepy-crawly ghost story not unlike, say ‘The Others'. (Something I was looking
forward to.) The film instead concerns the evil machinations of hoodoo
sorcerers. (I’m not being flippant, the film actually concerns “hoodoo”. Not to
be confused with voodoo, which is finally getting the respect it deserves from
tinsel town.) Others may get a real kick out of the whole thriller/mystery vibe,
but it just didn’t drag me in. Part of this may be the fault of the protagonist.
(The character as written that is, not particularly Ms. Hudson’s portrayal of
her.) I just couldn’t relate to her. It’s not that I found no empathy 
for the
lass, she just didn’t seem very bright. All I could think of during most of the
scary scenes is how a sensible person would try to handle the situation
differently. Though I was thrown for a while, at some point (about the beginning
of the third act) it became apparent to me how the story was going to end.
Taking a queue from M. Night Shama-completelyoutofideas-ilan most Hollywood
films nowadays are much too concerned with big surprise endings. Folks, a clever
twist don’t mean nothing’ if the story leading up to it isn’t worth watching.
This one needed a lot more polish.
'Skeleton Key' isn’t a bad movie, it’s just not very good either. Everything attempted by this movie has been done long before in other, better films. It would have done well as a segment in a horror anthology, but for feature material, it’s just a bit too thin. I’m not saying that it’s not worth watching. Just wait for the dvd.
5.0