For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Night 1 prompt is PG-13 Horror. We watched the movie, The Skeleton Key on Amazon Prime.

Storyline

A hospice nurse working at a New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house’s dark past.

Nurse Caroline Ellis quits her job to take care of elderly Ben Devereux, who had a stroke and can’t talk. When she gets to his house in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, she meets his wife Violet, who acts suspicious and creepy. The family’s lawyer, Luke Marshall, convinces Caroline to stay. She goes to the attic and finds a secret room there full of spells, hair, and bones used to practice Hoodoo, but Violet says she has never seen this secret room. Caroline wants to help Ben, thinking that Violet has put a spell on him. She knows Hoodoo can’t hurt someone who doesn’t believe in it. Can Caroline save Ben, or will she end up being the one who needs to be saved?

Our Thoughst on The Skeleton Key (2005)

I will agree that some parts of the movie could have been better, but I also that this flick is a lot better than what other people say it is.

I don’t think it was that terrible but it is a very predictable ghost-like story mixed with voodoo/hoodoo and bizarre imagery.

The acting was decent at least everyone nailed down their roles including Hurt and Kate Hudson.

It does follow the usual thriller troupe: girl sees a scary house , encounters secret doorways, sees bad things doesn’t know if they’re real or not, and of course, we all know the supernatural is at play here.

It could have been much better, faster paced, but it’s not terrible, if you have seen every other flick in theaters, the Skeleton Key will provide a good distraction.

5 out of 10 stars

Trivia 

• The swamp behind the Devereaux house was created with CGI effects. The actual house used in this movie, Felicity Plantation, is situated inland in St. James Parish, and is surrounded by farmland. The fictional Devereaux house was situated in Terrebonne Parish, which is coastal and swampy.
• When Caroline first finds the door in the attic, there’s a flowery pattern on it. When she goes back to unlock it later, it’s not the same doorknob.
• When Caroline is reporting for her interview, she steps out of her car and walks up to the house for the first time. We see her back from the car’s side mirror. In reality, the car is parked (and she walked) in a direction that would not allow her to be visible in the car’s side mirror.