Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

The Skeleton Key Blu-ray Movie Review

A door to nowhere.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 11, 2014

A big old southern Louisiana bayou mansion holds a dirty little secret in The Skeleton Key, a wannabe Horror/Thriller/Chiller from Director Iain Softley (Inkheart) and Writer Ehren Kruger (The Ring). The film is as rickety as its house and as lifeless as one of its lead characters, a man who suffered a stroke and exists in, more or less, a vegetative state. The picture isn't quite so comatose as to require its plug be pulled, but it is bogged down and made practically immobile by an excess of genre cliché and an air of largely faux mystery made all the more obnoxious by a handful of unlikable lead characters. This is a classic example of a go-nowhere movie that enjoys a fair amount of technical polish but that lacks the sort of dramatic urgency, edge-of-seat chills, truly haunting atmosphere, and legitimate surprises necessary to quicken the pulse and push the audience to want to discover the secrets, to need to find that resolution, to feel the story unfold in all its spine-tingling glory. Instead, the climax is met with a shrug of the shoulders and a check of the schedule to see what's playing next.

Stand back or I'll pour more chalk on the floor!

Nurse Caroline Ellis (Kate Hudson), tired of the impersonal nature of working at a large hospital where speed and efficiency rather than genuine human emotions are prioritized, decides to leave her job and find employment as a one-on-one hospice caregiver. The New Jersey native finds herself hired by the mysterious Violet Devereaux (Gena Rowlands), a deeply Southern aristocrat whose husband Ben (John Hurt) has lost everything but his life to a massive stroke. Caroline is given the full run of the house, but as her time within its walls increases, so too does her understanding that something isn't right. As she learns about the house's dark past and pieces together the clues surrounding the magic in place within it, she finds herself entangled in a web of deception and darkness that she could have never imagined and from which she may be unable to escape.

The Skeleton Key enjoys neither a truly frightening atmosphere nor a truly edgy or dangerous script. The film embraces the sort of mild, toned-down PG-13 Horror routine that's far too commonplace anymore, sacrificing legitimate terror and tension in favor of watered down genre antics suitable for the wider audience. The dark and musty home, once a symbol of Southern wealth and prestige but now reduced to shadows and rickety floorboards and flimsy doors held together with lock-and-key but not so sturdy that a solid kick couldn't penetrate them, makes for neither a scary environment nor one that becomes much of the proverbial inorganic character. It never feels like anything more than a shell that holds the secrets, secrets which themselves aren's so much secretive as they are indicative of watered-down tactics meant to scare audiences by sudden sights and by sharp musical cues and bass rather than legitimate, heart-pounding, mind-warping, and soul-scratching terror that the best genre films readily yield.

Yet perhaps the worst thing about the film is its lead character. Caroline Ellis is a snoop, plain and simple, someone sticking her nose where it really doesn't belong and bringing a lot of hurt down upon herself as a result. "Tell me what's in there, or I'm leaving!" she demands of her employer at one point in the movie. Most people would have thrown her out to the curb after that, but not Violet. Even as Caroline's presence remains necessary to the plot, it feels disingenuous, anyway, that someone so pushy wouldn't be asked to pack her bags, and upon further reflection she should have wondered why and left of her own accord, realizing that something must be amiss for her attitude to be tolerated as it is, particularly by someone with whom she never did develop much of a close relationship. As it is, the film plays at a snail's pace, methodically maneuvering through the creeping about in the locked attic room and slowly piecing together clues as exploration and revelation allow. Unfortunately, it's a pace that leaves the audience wanting, not so much wanting explosions and shootouts but a more potent atmosphere and something a little more nerve-grating than the usual watered-down Horror flavors that drown the movie to within an inch of its life.

The Skeleton Key Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Skeleton Key's VC-1, 1080p high definition transfer never looks terrible, but never does it look incredible. The image has a slight pastiness to it, a flatness of detail and an absence of grain that suggests a light scrubbing. Details are never terrible -- tree bark and accents around the home, such as scuffed wooden floors and odds and ends throughout -- but only occasionally look sufficiently complex. Faces, however, and much of the image, for that matter, frequently look lifeless and lacking the vibrant complexity of better transfers. Exterior foliage looks particularly smeary and indistinct. Colors are never all that exciting or bold. Green vegetation and a red car stand nicely apart, but the transfer takes on a deliberately musty, lower key sort of color scheme that accentuates the drab interior and darker secrets within the house. Black levels show only slight crush, and flesh tones never stray too far from natural shadings. There's a very nice-looking and naturally filmic image in there somewhere, but Universal's Blu-ray never can display it to satisfaction.

The Skeleton Key Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Skeleton Key's Blu-ray audio presentation sounds rather good. The included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack features a drifty, smooth opening musical element that's supported by an even surround sound element. There's a greater vibrancy to music pouring through a New Orleans nightclub and a good, positive weight to some Hip Hop notes blasting through the soundstage in chapter two. The track enjoys a wealth of immersive surround support and environmental ambiance, particularly in the way of the symphony of natural exterior elements that fully immerse the audience into the unique Southern landscape. Likewise, splattering raindrops, rolling thunder, and larger cracks of thunder do well to further define the environment. Dialogue replication satisfies with its clear and center-focused presentation.

The Skeleton Key Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Skeleton Key contains an audio commentary and deleted scenes. The disc is D-Box enabled.

• Audio Commentary: Director Iain Softley, sometimes sounding as if he's reading, discusses his attraction to the project, cast performances, Louisiana geography, production design, technical details of the shoot, story structure and themes, and much more. Despite a fairly flat tone from the speaker, the content is quite good and should please both fans and those interested in the art of crafting a major motion picture.
• Deleted Scenes (480i, window box, 21:40): With optional commentary with Director Iain Softley

The Skeleton Key Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Skeleton Key is the sort of movie where the little plot details and "aha!" moments really don't matter because all they do is invariably lead the audience down a path it has traversed time and time again in other films, some better than this, some worse, and a whole lot of them about the same. The film attempts to mask its thematic shortcomings with an atmosphere that fails to pull the audience into its web of history, deceit, and voodoo. The characters are flat and lack the ability to reason or to draw the audience closer to the secrets behind the façade. Caroline never really comes off as anything more than a convenient snoop who pushes the plot forward. The movie at least enjoys a sound technical competency but its positives more or less end there. It's the ultimate in "watch and forget" cinema. Universal's Blu-ray release of The Skeleton Key features flawed but passable video, decent audio, and a couple of supplements. There are much better ways to spend a couple of hours and a few dollars. Skip it.