The Skeleton Key (2005, dir:
Iain Softley; script: Ehren Kruger; cast: Kate Hudson, Gena
Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard, Joy Bryant, Maxine
Barnett)
I
guessed this film's "surprise ending," and all its plot twists, 20
minutes into the film. The clues were so loudly broadcast (all
those references to how terrible aging is; how horrible to be
around old people), the filmmakers might as well have scrolled
their "surprise ending" across the bottom of the screen.
In
The Skeleton Key, a young nurse is hired by an old woman to
take care of her old husband. The old husband appears frightened.
I guessed right off that the old woman planned to exchange bodies
with the young nurse, and that the old husband had already
exchanged bodies with the young lawyer.
All my previously mentioned films also had body-soul transference
plots, as did many 1970s horror TV shows.
Of course, I had to sit though
The Skeleton Key's tedious "slow burn" to nowhere, to confirm
that my guess was correct. Yes, this is one of those "slow
burn" horror films, Sometimes, the burn is suspenseful and
worth the wait. Not this time.
The Skeleton Key is also an arbitrary, pointless title. Yes,
there's a skeleton key in the film, but it's not really integral
to the core plot.
The Skeleton Key is a highly unoriginal piece of tripe. Not
scary, just obvious and tedious and dull.
The film does, however, illustrate an interesting creative
phenomenon -- that the same person who so delighted us with one
work, can so disappoint us with another. Screenwriter Ehren Kruger
wrote
The Ring (2002), which I regard as one of the five best horror
films of the 2000s. Alas,
The Skeleton Key is among the worst.
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