Spooky!

It's been a while since a movie last spooked me. And I must say, "The Skeleton Key" spooked me GOOD!

There was an instant disconnect when the name "Kate Hudson" was in a horror movie poster. I'm certain that a lot of people thought: "Where the hell is bright and bubbly Kate?" Then again, it would be nice to see Kate out of her element, just to see if she's as versatile as she's touted to be. Can she beat the "Meg Ryan curse" and prove her range?

The answer is Yes. Whilst it wasn't a groundbreaking revelation, it was refreshing to see Kate play a dark character. She managed to ditch all the cutesy-patootsy antics she carried with her in "How to Lose a guy in 10 days" and "Raising Helen." This was something Meg Ryan couldn't do. I swear, while I was watching "In the Cut" and "Proof of Life," my mind was waiting for her to do that "Awww...shucks" head throw that she mastered. Even in "City of Angels," it was hard to take her seriously as a doctor contemplating on how life fragile is.

Enough of Meg Ryan. I love her! She just needs to work on her range. I love "Kate and Leopold", by the way.

Back to Kate. In "Skeleton Key", I momentarily forgot she was Kate Hudson and was convinced she was really a New Jersey girl trying to make a living in New Orleans. She was totally lost in her character.

The nice thing about the movie is that it eschews all those tried and tested horror tricks. No shadows crossing in front of the camera. No sudden music crescendos. There were a few things popping in from out of nowhere, which was cool. With this combination, it escaped the rut that "The Others" fell into, and that is being compared to "The Sixth Sense" too much. (This was M. Night's best film yet, his others were so lame! But I digress...)

It's really the end of the film that got me. The conclusion and resolution was quite subtle, some might even say it's predictable. But once you leave the theater, and start piecing the things together, that's where the scariness really kicks in. And believe me, it KICKS IN hard and good.

I watched the film in the morning, and I was still carrying that spooked out feeling at night. While walking, my mind was playing "Iko, Iko" and goosebumps would just pop out of my skin. I haven't had this kindn of feeling since "The Blair Witch Project."

More horror films should be made this way. It's one big mind game, and a fertile mind is the best place to plant horror seeds.