ailing and elderly, a job designed to atone for her own mistakes for ignoring her dying father in the past, when she had been arock and roll a manager. After her latest charge passes away, Caroline search for hospic jobs. While traveling in a bus reading news paper she finds an advertisement for hospic work at Louisiana. She drives to the place and there she finds a lonely house which is a mansion and there she meets the estate lawyer Mr Luke(Peter Saarsgard)and Violet Devereaux (Gena Rowlands). Caroline has to taken care of Ben Devereaux (John Hurt) stoke victim and who is bed ridden and cannot speak. At first Violet not liked to appoint her by saying that she cannot understand the house. But Luke made Violet to appoint Caroline.
She shifts her living city to Louisiana by car saying bye to her friend Jill(Joy Brayant). On her way she ran out of fuel and refill fuel at a gas station. While paying for fuel there she finds brick powder placed on the threshold of the house and finds bones has been hanged inside the house.
Caroline settles in the mansion with Ben and Violet. She went to Ben's room and she made her familiar to Ben on sudden Ben grabbed her hands suddenly Violet enters the room Ben leaves Caroline's hand. Violet showed her how Ben takes
medicine and the timings. Caroline asks Violet about the house , violet replies that they brought this from a brother and sister . She showed caroline the photo of brothers. Caroline takes the photo of brother and sister in their childhood in her hands she found another photo under the photo of brother and sister. Its is of a black man and balck lady on the back of it it is written as Pappa Justify and Mamma Cicille.
Violet explains about the house and rooms , Violet gave Caroline a key the skeleton key which can open all the doors in the house. Caroline noticed
there are no mirrors in house when asked about violet replied if she wants ask her she had a small one with her. Violet asks about smoking Caroline replied she won't.
One day Violet asks Caroline to bring seeds from the Attic there she found some noise in a door inside the room, while opening it withe skeleton key it didn't worked for that room. she was suspicious about that room and asks about the room in the attic Violet not answered her properly.
In a rainy night while sleeping Caroline heard some noise from Ben's room, reached there she found Ben not in his bed he was moving to the gate through the roof and falls down Caroline calls violet for help . Caroline found very suspicious about the house and attic.
Caroline eventually gets into the locked attic room and finds a large collection of bizarre items that are obviously intended to be used for some kind of magic. She also finds all of the house's mirrors, she she hangs one in Ben's room, much to Violet's horror. Caroline finds out a little about magic from her friend and former roommate, Jill (Joy Bryant). Jill seems to think that the magic in question is Hoodoo, a type of folk magic which, unlike Voodoo, is not related to any kind of religion. Jill mentions that Hoodoo only holds power over those who believe in it; if you do not believe, its spells can't harm you.
Later, after a confrontation about the strange goings on, Violet explains the mansion's sordid past to Caroline. Years ago, the house was occupied by wealthy white owners. A pair of black servants, Papa Justify and Mama Cecile, were brutally attacked and lynched during a party that was attended by many wealthy, powerful guests. They were apparently well versed in the ways of Hoodoo, and Justify had even discovered a unique spell that was called the Conjure of Sacrifice. Justify and Cecile were discovered in the attic conducting a magic ritual with the two small children of the house, and the party guests reacted by dragging them outside, hanging them from a tree, and burning their bodies. Violet tells Caroline that she has removed all the mirrors from the walls because you can see the spirits of Justify and Cecile in the mirrors.
Seemingly anxious to put this to the test, Caroline uses her small compact mirror and holds it up to Ben's face while she is bathing him. After looking into the glass, Ben reacts in horror, and Caroline feels that Ben believes in Violet's superstitions. She gets the idea to visit a woman that Jill has told her about, a woman who sells magic items from the back of a public laundromat. Caroline describes Ben's situation to her and the woman gives her a spell intended to reverse whatever hex has already been placed on him. When Caroline enacts the spell, Ben begins to speak to her, begging her to help him, but Violet interrupts.
Caroline confides in her suspicions to Luke, who seems to accept her theories about magic but also does not take them very seriously. When Caroline attempts to show him the bedsheets that Ben wrote "Help Me" on, she finds the message is no longer there. She takes Luke to the gas station where she saw the magic items, and she now recognizes the dust sprinkled across the doorway; this is red brick dust, which she has learned is intended to keep one's enemies at bay. In one of the shacks behind the station, Caroline finds an old woman listening to vinyl records just like the ones in the Devereaux's attic. Caroline asks her if she's ever heard of a record called the Conjure of Sacrifice, and the old woman reacts in horror.
Caroline is now convinced that Violet herself has put a spell on Ben, and that she must get Ben away from the house for the spell to be broken. She concocts a plan to drug Violet and spirit Ben away from the mansion, but Violet catches on. Caroline interrupts her before she is able to draw a magic circle around herself, and Violet passes out. Caroline gets Ben and tries to escape in her car, but Violet awakens and recites spells that keep the car from breaching the locked gates of the house grounds. As Violet emerges from the house with a shotgun, Caroline manages to hide Ben in the tool shed and she promises to return for him. She then escapes through the swamp in a rowboat. Emerging on another shore of the swamp, she hitches a ride back to New Orleans and goes to Luke's apartment, just as he gets a phone call from Violet. When Luke goes into another room, Caroline rummages through his desk and finds a skeleton key from the house, as well as a few items from the secret room in the attic. Luke suddenly appears behind her and strangles her until she is unconscious.
When she wakes up again, she is bound and gagged, and Luke is driving her back to the Devereaux mansion. Violet meets them and tells Luke not to "scratch her up any more than she already is." They force Caroline to tell them where she has hidden Ben, and when Violet goes to get him, Caroline breaks away from Luke and hides in her bedroom, where she has spread brick dust across the doorway. Using a jar of red brick dust, she begins to seal herself off in the house, covering every dooryway and blocking Luke's advances towards her, but Violet appears and smashes the jar. They struggle on the second floor of the house, and Caroline hurls Violet over a banister. She falls, breaking her legs in the process, and Caroline makes a 911 phone call to the police. Immediately afterwards, she calls Jill and tells her she is in trouble at the Devereaux mansion, but Violet has dragged herself back upstairs, and she cuts the phone cord.
Unable to leave the house yet because of Luke, and trapped on the second floor by Violet, Caroline runs into the attic. Using a schematic that she snatched away from Violet, Caroline draws a magic circle around herself, using sulfur, chalk, blood and hair. This is the circle in which the Conjure of Sacrifice takes place. Violet drags herself into the attic just as Caroline finishes the circle. Caroline feels as if she's safe in the circle, but Violet tells her "Who did you get that spell from, Caroline? Wasn't it me?" Caroline begins to feel as if they wanted her in this circle after all. Violet unveils a full length mirror and advances on Caroline with it, while Caroline says over and over "You can't hurt me, I don't believe! I don't believe!" Both Violet and Caroline scream and are knocked to the floor by some kind of explosion, which shatters the mirror as it falls on Caroline.
Afterwards, they both awaken, but Caroline now is cool and calculating and talks like Violet, because now "Violet" is in her body. The true purpose of the events have become clear: "Violet" was never really Violet to begin with, she was the spirit of Cecile in Violet Devereaux's body. Luke has similarly been taken over by Papa Justify; Ben and Violet Devereaux were simply the last host bodies that Cecile and Justify had managed to perform the "Conjure of Sacrifice" with. It seems as if the first victims of this 'transference of souls' were the two children the night of the lynching; the ritual that was being performed allowed the souls of Justify and Cecile to switch bodies with the children, who were then trapped in the bodies of Justify and Cecile and murdered. From the children, Justify and Cecile had managed to transfer to Ben and Violet. With both bodies being in old age, they set up the trap again, luring Luke into the transference and trapping his soul in the aged body of Ben Devereaux while Justify's spirit, which was occupying Ben's body all these years, transferred to Luke's young body. Caroline was intended all along to be Cecile's next host body, which explains why Cecile (in Violet's body) told Justify/Luke to "not scratch her up any more". The challenge had been to get the cynical Caroline to believe in Hoodoo.
The film ends as Caroline, now trapped in the body of Violet Devereaux, is loaded into an ambulance with "Ben", who is really Luke inside Ben's body. They are to be taken away to hospice care to die, both of them unable to speak and unable to communicate to anybody what has happened to them. Jill, who is responding to Caroline's desperate phone call, arrives at the mansion in time to see them taken away on stretchers. Caroline (in Violet's body) looks on in desperation at Jill, wanting to tell her what happened but hexed into being mute. Justify and Cecile, now housed in the young bodies of Caroline and Luke, send Jill along with them in the ambulance.
TITLE : THE SKELETON KEY
YEAR : 2005
GENRE: HORROR
RUN TIME: 1:43:40
AUDIO: MP3 48000Hz 112 kb/s CBR (2 chnls)
LANGUAGE: English
VIDEO: 701 kbps XviD 23.976 FPS
RESOLUTION: 572 x 238
SIZE:701.43 MB
RELEASE DATE : 12/08/2005
STAR CAST
Kate Hudson - Caroline Ellis
Gena Rowlands - Violet Devereaux
John Hurt- Ben Devereaux
Peter Sarsgaard - Luke Marshall
Joy Bryant - Jill
Maxine Barnett - Mama Cynthia
jeryl presscot sales - mama cicile
papa justify - ronald mcCall
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