DVD Beat: The Skeleton Key

Wow! You guys must be thinking, two DVD Beats in one day after only three other articles exist after I started this a few months back. Most of you probably don't care, but let me toot my own horn once in awhile.

Here's an interesting day of movie watching. One movie I thought would be good (War of the Worlds) dissapointed the hell out of me, and this one I thought would be okay at best, suprised the hell out of me. You never know what you're going to get from a film, I guess.

I'm going to start with a little defense on the part of one Ehren Kruger, screenplay writer of "The Skeleton Key." This man, for many, started off out of the gate hot as hell with the tight thriller, "Arlington Rd.," and then dipped very quickly in most people's minds. "Impostor," "Reindeer Games," and "Scream 3" really didn't set anybody's world on fire, and rightfully so. Then came "The Ring," which is solid, but he basically copied the original Japanese version; I'm not completely sure why they just didn't shoot the original script. Then we got "The Ring 2" and "The Brothers Grimm," which once again didn't set the world on fire.

But, and this will be a screenplay writer's bias (Not published or anything, but at least use to hope I would be one day), the writer gets blamed for a lot of shit that takes place behind the curtain. Take "Reindeer Games" for example. This was a film, first off, from Dimension, who have screwed up a lot of hot properties. And it was also their first major budgeted film (70 million dollar range). So, there were a lot of fears behind the scenes of whether or not this baby was going to make any money, and it didn't. Not to mention, the original director was fired, and John Frankenheimer was brought into do clean-up. He obviously wasn't in the best of mind at the time, he died shortly after production wrapped. And, this is coming from someone who read the original script, trust me when I tell you the finished product is very little like the original script. It was not a hell of a screenplay, but it was a solid thriller with a cool twist ending that got screwed up in so many ways throughout the filmmaking process. Ben Affleck and Charlize Theron are horribly miscast here; Gary Sinise should have nailed his part out of the ballpark, but decided to give his character some strange tics that made the whole performance a little strange. They actually moved some scenes around that caused the twist at the end to make very little sense. But, Kruger, hot off "Arlington Road," takes the fall for this. "Brothers Grimm" and "Impostor" were also Dimension films, so there you go. "Scream 3" was written off a treatment by Kevin Williamson, and was also a hot property that the studios tangled with, and that studio was Dimension (Is there a trend here or what). As for, The Ring 2, not Dimension, but anyone can realize that was for the paycheck. So, just a bad script probably from the beginning.

My whole point on this I guess, is a love letter to all hard working screenplay writers out there, but also to point out that really "The Skeleton Key" shouldn't have surprised me. Because going into it, the thing that worried me the most was that Kruger wrote it. But after watching it, I remembered "Arlington Road," and thought that's right, Kruger can write a solid thriller, and thankfully he has again.

I really like stories surrounded around Voodo, or in "Skeleton Key," it's actually Hoodoo. According to the film, Voodoo is the religion, Hoodoo is what involves all the magic and spell casting. One of my all time favorite films, as I've mentioned on this site before, is "Angel Heart," which has the infamous Lisa Bonet biting the head off a chicken scene. But "Angel Heart" is an exception to the rule; most movies about Voodoo, or Hoodoo (whatever) aren't very good. Movies like "Voodoo Dawn," "The Curse," and "Netherworld" use it as a device for their cheap ass generic horror film. After watching "The Skeleton Key," I have the feeling Kruger really did his homework here. The religion is as much a part of the story as the characters are. It's basically the major character in the film, and he uses it, along with the great director, Ian Softley (Wings of the Dove), to give the film a real sense of forebodence. This isn't really a scary film, but it's damn eerie.

In Chris's review of this when it came out in the theater, he talks about how great the ending is. And he's not wrong. You know after the first thirty minutes or so that there is going to be a twist at the end, and it will make or break the film. And it really works. A lot of writers and directors out there are huge fans of the twist ending, and I can't blame them. Because when they work, like in say "The Sixth Sense," or "Usual Suspects," you give people a film that they will remember for the rest of their lives. The problem is most of the time it seems that the twist is all the writer had going into his work on the film, and then had to come up with a story to lead up to it. Two films that came out this year, "Flightplan" and "Saw II," have great hooks at the end. The problem is everything leading up to them is unengaging and contradictive to the final act. When that twist hits, you go back and say wait, well then nothing else in this film makes a damn bit of sense. "The Skeleton Key" has perfect execution from the first frame to the last. I don't think you could go back and find anything worth noting that would even resemble the slightest contradiction in its framework.

I do want to step back, and say this film is really not on the level of "The Sixth Sense," "The Usual Suspects," or say "Seven." It's not a great film, but it is a really good one. Peter Sarsgard, much like in "Flightplan," is flat out terrible in this film. I haven't had a chance to see "Jarhead," but it will be nice to see a good performance from him this year after two awful ones. His accent will make you laugh your ass off; it's like Nicholas Cage in "Vampire's Kiss," or Julliette Moore in "Hannibal" bad. There are also a few scenes in the last act's set-up that don't make a damn bit of sense. Trying to drive a VW bug through a padlocked 10 ft. iron gate would be the most notable one. But these and a few other minor squabbles really don't take away from what is for the most part, a really good thriller.

It's definately worth a rental, and I really wish I had a chance to see this with a huge audience at a theater; that probably would have been a lot of fun. Because trust me when I tell you that you will love the ending. It's the kind of thing that makes you go, "Well no shit. You got me there." If you're in the mood for a cool mystery, check it out, it should not dissapoint.