I saw Kate Hudson’s latest picture, The Skeleton Key, in an unannounced preview today, and although I’m not a horror film fan, I liked it. The story is about Carolyne (Kate Hudson), a New Orleans nurse accepting a job as a live-in nurse for a Ben, a man who had suffered a stroke in his house in the Louisiana swamps. Carolyne quickly realizes that there are mysterious things going on in the house, and that Violet, her patient’s wife, is doing something bad.
So far, so good. Now the spoilers.
I read a few IMDb reviews on it, and several of them complained about the movies predictability. True, it’s becoming clear pretty early that Violet is doing something evil on Ben involving Voodoo, abd that Ben is trying to tell this to Carolyne. Yet I found the ending surprising (unlike a friend of mine who had predicted that, but I don’t think it was that obvious), and more important, I found the ending to really make sense - once you accept the idea of voodoo magic being real, which I refused until the ending, always searching for a rational explanation. Pretty much everything in the film fits together abd is wrapped up nicely in this ending, and the final remark of the lawyer about Violet bestowing the house upon Carolyne gives you a hint at how intricate the plan really was.
One of the reviews on IMDb remarked that people who were not familiar with the horror genre would probably rate it higher. Guess this was true for me. But definitely a film worth the time and money spent on it.
Bump.
Im still working on how the Lawyer got past the red brick dust when he is with Caroline at the gas station.
How Caroline could leave the circle after Violet died.
Personally. When the Person at the laundromat told Caroline that the sacrifice was to take the rest of the years from someone… I knew that… she was already a target at that point.
Maybe the brick dust threshold only blocks people who are enemies to the one who put the dust there. That would go along with what the lady in the voodoo store told Caroline: If you form that line of brick dust, your enemies can’t cross it. And since the lawyer isn’t going to do any harm to the gas station man, he could simply walk in.
This is an interesting question I didn’t come up with. One could say that Violet didn’t actually die; she changed bodies with Caroline, so that her soul is now in Caroline’s body and vice versa. Then Caroline, with the soul of Violet inside, could simply leave the circle; but then again Violet’s body, in which is now Caroline’s soul, ought to be trapped inside.
The friend with whom I watched the film found a related problem: Caroline got the conjure that created the magic circle out of Violet’s book, believing it was a protective conjure. My friend asked: How probable is it that Caroline, merely by chance, picked this fatal conjure that trapped her? My reply was that probably the conjures can only have the effect you believe them to have (you know, they can’t do any harm unless you believe it, which is underpinned throughout the film). When Violet told Caroline that the conjure trapped her, Caroline believed it and was therefore actually trapped, although that was not what the conjure was supposed to do.
I figured the brick dust would be along those lines. But thats just way too convienent. Then again I will admit its a “religion” I know nothing about.
Violet told Caroline that the spell was only going to protect her from leaving the circle. … Violet further stated “I gave you that spell” … I took both of these together… to imply that the spell/ritual did what it was intended to do. The Title however was misleading… to lay the trap.