The Skeleton Key: Critic Reviews

For anyone zombified by creaky thriller cliches, Skeleton is a fine little shot in the head.

One of the most enjoyably inane movies of the season, this faux Southern Gothic offers an embarrassment of geek pleasures.

This is essentially a haunted-house horror flick that starts off with effectively eerie scenes but devolves into a forced and mildly ridiculous ghost story.

The Skeleton Key delivers on all formulaic counts, except one: It never serves up any truly nightmare-inspiring scares.

A diverting, stylish thriller that, despite pivoting on that and other whoppers, deserves credit for creating an authentic, original vibe.

This nasty little movie is communicating with regional and racial cliches from beyond the grave.

Creaky in its mechanics and numbingly protracted, this is basement B horror that fancies itself a prestige chiller.

Though the story is as creaky as a plantation porch, Iain Softley's lushly atmospheric The Skeleton Key does offer a few nifty twists on the classic 'woman in peril' picture.

A formulaic fear-fest with a bare-bones plot, The Skeleton Key is more moody than scary, and Hudson's heroine is unsympathetic.

Even with all its florid melodrama, The Skeleton Key seems slow as molasses and not nearly as tasty.

The Skeleton Key opens a very different door into its tale of black magic in a Louisiana plantation home.

The Skeleton Key is one of those movies that explains too much while it is explaining too little, and leaves us with a surprise at the end that makes more sense the less we think about it. But the movie's mastery of technique makes up for a lot.

Serviceable but ultimately disappointing.

The film offers a rich gumbo of menace, mystery and magic - and then lets it go cold and mushy in a rainstorm of Hollywood haunted-house huggermugger.

A spellbinding chiller.

A pretty good movie.

The Skeleton Key is more creaky than creepy, like visiting an expensive haunted house.

A gumbo of silly mumbo-jumbo no more frightening than a Mardi Gras mask.

The Skeleton Key is unable to ward off the nasty spirits of formula screenwriting.

The Skeleton Key is strictly summer schlock.

The Skeleton Key is a hoodoo puzzle that's more interesting than scary.

Criminal waste of talent.

A stylishly made but disappointingly lightweight psychological horror tale set in the bayou.

The Skeleton Key delivers its share of cheap scares but never unlocks the door to the creepiness that would have made this is memorable movie-going experience.