Don't Open Closed Doors, Duh: THE SKELETON KEY

Before you say anything, I had to see this movie. I have a screenplay, 9 drafts of one actually, a ghost story set in Louisiana with a voodoo influence. So figured I oughtta see THE SKELETON KEY, a movie about hospice worker (Kate Hudson) who helps a superstitious woman (Gena Rowlands) care for her dying husband (John Hurt). WHile there, she goes through doors that she's not supposed to and unravels a voodoo plot. Its kind of prepostorous but it is solidly acted throughout. Hudson is almost too cute for the role - I never really believed that she was strong enough to take on these powers. And John Hurt spends most of the movie babbling incoherently. The best performance, actually, is given by family estate lawyer Peter Sarsgaard who manages to excel in yet another morally questionable role. He's like James Cromwell for me - you can't trust him. Anyway, the setting is great, the locations manager should be commended - Louisiana just looks creepy. The screenplay is only so so. There is some dialogue that is plain embarrassing and some plot points that are never questioned and just accepted. The story is actually about hoodoo and not voodoo (a fine distinction) and there is entirely too much time spent on the intricacies of the belief system. The director falls back on several cat-jumps-out-of-closet type scares rather anything truly frightening. Also too much of Kate Hudson on her own. I don't think she is strong enough to carry so much screen time where she is alone and just doing things. She is at her best in dialogue. But this movie is short on that, and what there is of it, is not really the stuff great movies are made of. In general, THE SKELETON KEY is more the idea of a movie rather than the movie itself. And I hope it will be little remembered by the time someone is reading my screenplay.

The Skeleton Key is recommended for people who like scary movies, any scary movies, i.e. people who paid to see Bride of Chucky, anyone who's been considering living with superstitious elderly people in the Louisiana bayou, people who can't get enough of Kate Hudson's ever excited nipples, and people who wander confusedly into the theater and stumble into any doorway. Rick's Rating: C+