The Skeleton Key (2005)

The Skeleton Key is a film that's been waiting for me ever since its release in 2005, when I would have been seven. I saw snatches of it as I passed through the living room where my parents were watching, but the little bits I saw seemed so twisted and disturbing that I hardly stuck around to see anymore. Plus, I wasn't allowed to watch movies like that anyway. Fast forward to now, and I've been looking for some excuse one day to check this film out, despite hearing in the years since that it wasn't exactly a stone-cold classic or anything. Now that I'm on a folk horror kick, which was supposeably what this fell under, I was excited for the excuse to check it out and rewind myself back to the year it came out, when life was simpler and I was a lot skinnier.

First off, by some strange coincidence I watched Angel Heart on the very same day I watched this, which meant I got a sort of whirlwind tour of New Orleans and a big dose of its folklore between the two films, or at least the Hollywood version. I also obviously spoiled the film for myself at least a little because I knew it fell into the folk horror sub-genre, which makes the premise extremely easy to parse out: Kate Hudson arrives at the house of an elderly couple to help care for and watch closely over the husband, played by John Hurt, who is wheelchair-bound and totally mute, though he's been known to suddenly up and try to escape by any means necessary. This is why he needs constant care, which his wife, who lives there as well and doesn't seem to have any kind of day job, seemingly can't provide on her own.

Some of the folky stuff is enjoyable, like the scene with John Hurt and the candles and water, but more often than not it comes off as especially silly, like when our heroine is fighting off a pursuer by frantically pouring sand all about the house. The return of the white chalk circle of safety was heartwarming, but there's little else for academics to sink their teeth into. I think the real weak link, though, is the backstory, which is only vaguely explained, creating some serious problems when it comes to our pair of villains and their motivations, which are never lighted upon in the film (though I may have missed a line or two, I admit.) It doesn't help that the scene that gives us all this information is far too busy and edited like a jacked-up music video. So if you thought Angel Heart was at all insensitive to Hoodoo beliefs or traditions, or that white people had no business making a film incorporating such things, you'll likely loathe this film's pair of evil slaves-cum-witchdoctors. I give them credit for trying to subvert your expectations, but if you're going to go with such a provocative concept, maybe try fleshing out the characters and their motivations a bit more so they don't come off as cartoonish stereotypes of voodoo witches. The kernel of a spooky idea is here and could have been so much better if handled by more talented filmmakers.

The ending is unfortunately almost identical to Allison's Birthday, which is obscure enough you can hardly claim for sure that the people responsible for The Skeleton Key had to have seen it before, but which still set a standard that this film just can't live up to. I was reminded of so many great seventies horror films that end in similar circumstances of absolute terror, and they're all more disturbing than this. Something about the ending just doesn't seem right: there's no desperation, no shrieking or screaming, nothing but a calm and collected denouement where the film ties up a few loose ends and then ends with hip hop music that totally kills the mood. I had exactly one a-ha! moment involving John Hurt's character which had escaped me somehow until the very end, but otherwise, I was distinctly unengaged and disappointed. The ingredients for something truly horrifying are here, but they just don't quite know what to do with them. I blame the era, honestly: this is where attention spans really began to get hit hard and audience patience was at an all-time low, not helped by horror filmmakers being as extreme and stylish as they could manage to keep things 'current.' 

The big question I'm left with is: why was Peter Skarsgard in this film? Surely he wasn't in need of money that badly right? He does a wonderful job with what he's given, but he really seems far too good for this. Barring the incredible John Hurt, who does his absolute best in a tough role, the rest of the cast is fairly forgettable. The filmmaking is unimpressive and especially lacking in atmosphere, which is a killer for a spooky horror film. Loud, obnoxious scares and the pace of an action film date the film considerably. While I appreciated going back and giving it a whirl, and it certainly wasn't as bad as its reputation suggests, it's hardly a genre-defining classic and unlikely to be a film I revisit any time soon. Only the most desperate of horror fans need bother, though folk horror academics will probably find it enjoyable enough.