The Skeleton Key
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2005 horror movie, starring Kate Hudson as a hospice worker who takes a job caring for an invalid at an old house in New Orleans. Things rapidly go downhill as the old man's wife behaves strangely, a locked room in the attic contains evidence of hoodoo rituals, and she finds the poor guy desperately wants to escape...
Tropes used in The Skeleton Key include:
- And I Must Scream: A nasty potion is used repeatedly, that leaves victims with all the effects of a stroke.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Cecile ends up possessing Caroline, leaving her stuck in Violet's crippled, mute body right alongside Ben (actually Luke, with the same thing done to him previously by Justify). Roll credits.
- The Big Easy
- Big Fancy House
- Black Best Friend: Caroline's, who knows about Voodoo but doesn't practice it. Possibly may have noticed "Caroline" speaking like an old lady at the end.
- Black Magic
- Body Surf: Cecile and Justify's method of immortality.
- Brother-Sister Incest (maybe): Cecile and Justify are a married couple who posessed the bodies of a brother and sister.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe.
- Creepy Housekeeper: Violet.
- Downer Ending: Read above for The Bad Guy Wins.
- Equivalent Exchange: Sometime sacrifice is more like... an exchange.
- Fate Worse Than Death: Being stuck in a body old and decrepit, unable to talk, helped by two "caring" people who at least will put you out of your misery soon.
- Grand Theft Me: The main goal of Cecile and Justify.
- Hugh Mann: Happens at the end. Also the lawyer, now taken over, has to learn "lawayerism For Dummies" to pass over even for his job. That hoodoo bodysnatching has some drawbacks... but like they said, beggars can't be choosers.
- Human Sacrifice: Implied, as a ruse. It's not exactly that, but worse.
- Hollywood Voodoo: Somewhat averted, as the movie makes the distinction that the goings on are the result of Hoodoo, not Voodoo. Still lots of Black Magic and such to go around, though.
- House of Broken Mirrors
- Infant Immortality: Averted. Immediately after switching bodies with little Martin and Grace, "Cecile and Justify" are found and hanged.
- Manipulative Bastards: Cecile and Justify. They might almost be Magnificent Bastards if it weren't for the sacrificing children thing.
- The children, in the bodies of Cecile and Justify, were lynched by their own parents!
- Sort of justified: it was easier to trick children than wrestle grown adults into a magic circle and make them exchange bodies. They wanted revenge on their masters, if we are to believe them, who treated them badly. The children supplied more years for them to live. And at that time and age, they needed white bodies to live as decent human beings. And we don't even know if they caused the children to go missing on purpose: for all we know, that could have happened right after the ritual ended. First time always takes longer to prepare and enact.
- Personal Effects Reveal: The eponymous key is found in one of the main character dead patient's personal belongings.
- Room Full of Crazy: Well, an attic full of Hoodoo anyway.