The Skeleton Key (review)
A Kind of Magic
It doesn’t work if you don’t believe. It’s the mindset that fuels the power of superstition, of placebos, of magic, of religion. It also fuels the power of movies, and in particular of horror movies: Can you let go your skepticism to a degree wherein you can fool yourself into buying — for an hour and a half or so, at least — the most outrageous conceits? You’re only looking for some temporary diversion, after all, not a cure for cancer or the eternal salvation of your soul. And yet it can be surprisingly hard, in the face of movie characters behaving stupidly even when confronted with clear indications to get the hell out of demonic harm’s way.
The Skeleton Key deals with such conundrums head on, in a way that films about paranormal hoo-
Which isn’t to say that it isn’t all utter nonsense, either… at least, that’s how it’ll feel, reassuringly, the next day. Oh, all the silly hoodoo about old mansions in the L’siana swamps, about noises in the attic and locked doors and a skeleton key that opens every mysterious portal in the house: it is to laugh, no? Stalwart, no-
Well, as with most films looking to give you a good fright, revealing too much about The Skeleton Key would spoil the fun for you. Suffice to say that a genuine horror — and a not so ancient one at that — rises up out the history of the South to fire all the weird mumbo-
The brilliant — and truly beguiling — thing about Key is how it lures us into following Caroline along the psychological path she takes, tricks us into walking right in her footsteps, so that we, like her, don’t even realize until it’s too late how we’ve been bewitched. Her dismissal of anything outside of the plainly rational was so vital to letting us accept her as a character in the beginning of the film — of course she walks into spooky places unannounced, because there’s nothing to be afraid of: ghost and goblins and voodoo don’t really exist, even if some people act like they do. Hudson’s undeniable screen charm springs partly from her resilience, her determination, her groundedness. But as Caroline’s skepticism slowly erodes to the point where she begins to believe — and hence begins to be affected by those beliefs — ours has been too. If Carolina is stunned by how everything resolves itself, well, we are, too, mostly because we just didn’t expect our own surprise.
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MPAA: rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, some partial nudity and thematic material
viewed at a semipublic screening with an audience of critics and ordinary moviegoers
official site | IMDb
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