![]() Modern locks are typically pin tumbler locks which comprise a cylinderical core that can turn inside its housing with the right key inserted. The problem with this design is that you take any key and file it down in all places where that lock model could have a protrusion, creating a skeleton key that fits into every lock. The only thing preventing a wrong key from opening the lock is a series of protrusions (called wards) that need to fit cutouts on the key. Just read Ephesians 6:12.Historically, people used warded locks in which the key more or less directly moves the locking dog out of the way. ![]() Of course, a spiritually dark world exists whether or not we choose to believe it, but you don’t need to wade through the spiritual confusion, violence and foul language of The Skeleton Key to learn that. Try walking in front of a moving bus with such a worldview and you’ll discover how well that notion holds up. It also relies on a weird metaphysical outlook: Something is not real unless you believe it’s real. In the end, it tries to be both, relying on a twist ending that will have audiences feeling like they’ve just seen a poor rip-off of The Sixth Sense. Written by Ehren Kruger, who also wrote The Ring, The Ring Two and The Brothers Grimm, this film can’t decide if it wants to be a supernatural thriller or a murder mystery. It also relies on hoary spook-movie clichés, like why doesn’t anyone turn on a light when she walks into a dark room!? The Skeleton Key is an atmospheric film that relies heavily on Southern Gothic conventions: creepy mansion, ancient live-oak trees dripping Spanish moss, murky bayous and a Northerner who has no idea what she’s just walked into. “We don’t see them until we believe we can.” She’s pretty open-minded about having ghosts around, though: “Say what you will about spirits, but I’ve always thought we could learn from them.” Violet asks Caroline, “You religious at all?” to which Caroline responds, “I try to keep an open mind.” Luke later says, “My family is superstitious, too. “Maybe all houses have spirits,” she explains. Violet has removed all the mirrors from her house because, she claims, you can see ghosts in mirrors. So, according to the mythology, “It doesn’t matter if it’s not real. When she does a healing ceremony for Ben, she doesn’t believe it’s true but thinks Ben does. Caroline investigates potions and other hoodoo paraphernalia, and she performs hoodoo rituals. A character from the past is referred to as a “conjure man,” and, during a flashback sequence, he and others are shown in a trance as they perform a hoodoo ritual. From the devil’s house, take me.” A line of brick dust across a door’s threshold is said to keep out evildoers. A recording of a hoodoo ritual contains the lines, “Take me out of darkness, please, Lord. She finds a book containing strange drawings and incantations. Caroline learns the hard way that it doesn’t take too much to get one to “believe.”Ī lot of occult imagery is featured as Caroline tries to get to the bottom of the mystery. It can’t hurt you if you don’t believe in it.” Ah, but there’s the rub. God doesn’t have much to do with it.” She adds, “It’s pretty harmless. As one character explains, “Voodoo is a religion. The story revolves around the practice of hoodoo ( not voodoo). Add to that other mysterious goings-on, throw in a healthy dose of hoodoo and mix with dim lighting, creepy atmospherics and plenty of nighttime thunderstorms, and you have yet another movie enamored with all things dark and supernatural. Coincidentally, Ben had suffered his stroke while in the attic.Īfter more exploring of the house and investigating its previous occupants, Caroline becomes convinced that all is not as it seems to be-with the house, with Violet and especially with Ben. ![]() In her spare time, Caroline takes to exploring the huge house using a skeleton key that opens every door in the house-except a mysterious small door she finds hidden behind the fireplace in the attic. (And what a house it is-a creepy, decrepit antebellum mansion in the middle of the Louisiana bayou.) Ben has suffered a stroke, and Violet and her lawyer, Luke, hire Caroline to take care of him as he dies. That’s how she winds up at the house of Violet and Ben Devereaux. She’s been making up for that transgression ever since, selflessly giving herself to the dying. Hospice-care nurse Caroline Ellis is haunted by the fact that, because of family tensions, she was not around to comfort her father when he died.
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