Going in to this I was expecting "The Ring: Cajun Style" but thanks to a script that goes in an unexpected direction (that being that it's not quite the ghost story it was advertised to be), the advantage of having the great ambience of the New Orleans bayou, director Iain Softley's good build-up of creepy mood, and a few decent thrills in the final third, The Skeleton Key actually manages to be a pretty entertaining little horror-thriller.

Kate Hudson (in one of her few "non-cutesy" roles and doing a well enough job of it) stars as Caroline, a young nursing student who gets tired of the way big city hospitals treat their patients which she witnesses first hand when the death of one of the older men she's caring for isn't given much importance. She decides she needs to get away from this environment and heads out to a nearby former plantation to apply for a caregiver job with the Devereaux's looking after invalid husband Ben (John Hurt).

After much apprehension by wife Violet (Gena Rowlands) she's given the job and is handed a skeleton key that will open every door in the house. It's from here that strange events start to occur as Caroline begins to witness strange events like the rattling of a door in the attic (the only door her special key isn't able to unlock) and her paralyzed charge attempting to escape the house in the middle of a rainstorm by crawling out the window onto the roof. Soon she's caught in a supernatural mystery involving the former owner's two black servants, who dabbled in Hoodoo (a magic bound to the Earth, somewhat similar to voodoo) and ended-up being hung, after she forces her way into the room and finds all sorts of disturbing items.

After a leisurely start, The Skeleton Key picks-up quite a bit in the final third as Hudson's character finds herself on the run from her new employer, who it seems has malice in mind. Up to this point the movie was a pretty quiet, but fairly interesting, time that managed to build up a lot of good atmosphere by using some effective flashback scenes and due to Softley bathing the film in torrential rain and murky darkness. But it's in the finale that the movie really chooses to show its identity as not just another spooky supernatural movie as Rowland turns in a suitably evil performance and Ehren Kruger's script manages to pull off a pretty good twist ending.

However, I would've really loved to have seen more background into Hoodoo, because I find the subject to be pretty fascinating and perfect for a gothic horror flick, and there's just a few too many predictable moments in the script, but if you're looking for a recent Hollywood scare flick (with the usual PG-13 rating) and are tired of trudging through second-rate Asian horror inspired drivel and mediocre remakes then The Skeleton Key should make for a pleasing 104 minutes. (Chris Hartley, 11/20/05)

Directed By: Iain Softley.
Written By: Ehren Kruger.

Starring: Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, Peter Sarsgaard, John Hurt.

Picture Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: While there's a few moments of brief edge enhancement the picture on this disc looks pretty damn good and it handles the film's constant dark tone well.

Extras: While it seems like Universal has packed the disc full of special features, to be honest most of just aren't that "special". Most of them are pointless and almost all of them are too short.

We get a five minute "making of" featurette, a featurette on Voodoo/Hoodoo, deleted scenes with option commentary by Softley, a "gumbo recipe" with spaztic editing, a featurette on the music used in the film (and it was good music too), "Kate Hudson's Ghost Story" which is our lead actress telling of a childhood "ghost" encounter, a much too brief featurette on plantation life, a featurette on the film's casting, John Hurt reading an excerpt from a book on slavery, a featurette on the plantation shooting location, Gena Rowland's showing us a "love spell", and a mildly interesting commentary by Softley.