The forbidden key

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The forbidden key
Original title The Skeleton Key
Country of production United States , Germany
original language English
Publishing year 2005
length 104 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
JMK 12
Rod
Director Iain Softley
script Honor Kruger
production Michael Shamberg
Daniel Bobker
Stacey Sher
Iain Softley
music Ed Shearmur
camera Daniel Mindel
cut Joe Hutshing
occupation

The Skeleton Key is a horror film directed by Iain Softley from the year 2005 .

action

25-year-old Caroline works as a hospice nurse in New Orleans , but quits because she feels the conditions in the hospice are inhuman and wants to care for her patients more intensively. She is persuaded by the young inheritance lawyer Luke to take a job in a remote house in the Louisian swamps .

The imperious Violet lives there with her paralyzed husband Ben. Caroline soon realizes that something is wrong in the house. Ben tries to signal to her that he needs help. An attempt to escape fails, and Caroline tells Luke that she feels Ben distrusts his wife. Caroline asks her black friend Jill about black magic and she explains that hoodoo only works if you believe in it. Luke later turns out to be Violet's ally: Both turn out to be the former servants of the old house Papa Justify and Mama Cecile. When Luke and Violet were caught practicing hoodoo spells 90 years ago, they had swapped bodies with those of the children in the house's family, after which they - in the wrong body - were lynched by their own parents . Since then they have lived as the siblings in the house of their former employers until they exchanged bodies again in 1962 with the married couple Ben and Violet, who wanted to buy the house at the time. And now Papa Justify as Ben has already swapped bodies with Luke using magic.

For this purpose alone, Caroline was lured into the house: to serve as the successor to the aging Violet, Mama Cecile. The ghost transfer succeeds through a hoodoo ritual, and the helpless Caroline, now trapped in the body of Violet, who was paralyzed after a fight, is transported away by an ambulance.

criticism

  • FILMSTARTS.de: There are films that are haunted by their specially created ghosts. The same goes for the mystery thriller “The Forbidden Key”. Hoodoo is not to be confused with voodoo and therefore magic without dolls and needles. According to the dictionary it means, among other things, "something that brings bad luck". When trying to conjure up the evil forces, the director Iain Softley should have ordered an exorcist, because the swampy Gothic atmosphere and the dark hoodoo magic cannot save the woody script. Maybe another case of "the spirits I called"?
  • film-dienst 17/2005: Against the background of the hoodoo cult, a story of wandering souls mixed with the set pieces of the horror genre develops, the dramaturgical half-bakedness of which hardly leaves any tension. Missing the main role, the film compensates for with good supporting actors, precise direction and atmospheric photography.

publication

After its theatrical release on August 12, 2005, the film was grossed over $ 91 million worldwide on a production budget of $ 43 million. In Germany, the film was seen by 783,304 moviegoers after its release on August 18, 2005.

Awards

  • Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, 2006
    • Nominated for the Saturn Award for best horror film
    • Nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress-Gena Rowlands
  • Empire Awards, 2006
  • Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 2006
    • Nominated for the Chainsaw Award for Best Supporting Actress - Gena Rowlands
  • International Film Music Critics Award (IFMCA) 2005
    • Nominated for best film music (horror / thriller film) -Ed Shearmur

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Age rating for The Forbidden Key . Youth Media Commission .
  2. ↑ http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/38253-Der-verbotene-Schl%C3%BCssel/kritik.html
  3. ↑ The Skeleton Key at boxofficemojo.com (English), accessed December 2, 2012
  4. ↑ TOP 100 DEUTSCHLAND 2005 on insidekino.de , accessed on January 2, 2012