[Gae]

First of all let me start by saying the movie looked and sounded great on HD DVD.


Now to the movie itself.....
If you have yet to see the movie then dont read any further....









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*****************MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD**********************
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Having just finished watching "The Skeleton Key" on HD DVD I have to say that overall, I feel totally cheated with the double twist ending. I really liked the film right up until the last few minutes when this came to light. The film up to then had been suitably atmospheric and absorbing with enough going on to maintain the interest throughout. When the Lawyer turned out to be in on things with the elderly couple, to be honest, it was hardly surprising but was at least believable. The fact that we where then expected to believe that he and the main lead (Kate Hudson) were in cahoots together was totally ridiculous. Why, you might ask? Well, the reason being that up until that point, we, the audience, were expected to believe that everything that had happened between them behind closed doors (the strangulation, handkerchief gagging and hostage drive for example) had been "staged" purely for the audience. Why would they enact these scenes behind closed doors when no-one was watching except to cheat the audience into believing this was real? The reality is that there was no "third party" watching them during these scenes and so they would have behaved normally and made plans together for the events to come. Instead, the film lies and manipulates the audience and by the time the double twist has been revealed we feel totally cheated by the pretence of what we have seen before. Personally I hate this kind of audience manipulation and it totally ruined what had otherwise been an engrossing film up to that point. If the Lawyer and Hudson's relationship had been exposed 5 minutes earlier, sure it might not have been as effective but it would
have been more convincing and believable. Instead these red-herrings are set up for the sole purpose of deceiving the audience and are in the end, nothing more than a cheap device to make the film too clever for its own good. A real shame as "The Skeleton Key" could have been an excellent Ghost Story instead
of a cheap attempt to manipulate the audience's perspective for the sake of a supposedly clever double twist.

Gae