5. The Skeleton Key (2005)
The Skeleton Key is often overlooked as a horror film. Despite its star-studded cast, it received a lukewarm critical reception which does it little justice. The Skeleton Key follows Caroline (Kate Hudson) as she is employed by Violet Devereaux (Gena Rowlands) as a live-in carer for her elderly husband Ben (John Hurt) in an old plantation home outside of New Orleans. While there, Caroline becomes convinced that Ben may be the victim of a hoodoo curse, uncovering the dangerous secrets of the house’s past in the process.
After learning that the house was formerly occupied by two notorious hoodoo practitioners, Mama Cecile and Papa Justify, Caroline comes to believe in the hoodoo curse. The film’s final twist sees her learn the shocking truth: nothing is as it seems, because Justify and Cecile have been transferring their consciousness into new bodies and trapping their victims inside their prior vessels. Ben is really Luke, and Caroline only learns this after being trapped inside the body of Violet that was previously inhabited by Cecile.
It’s one of those twists that connects the dots in a shocking and somewhat unexpected way, but that isn’t what makes it great. What makes The Skeleton Key‘s twist so good is that it allows the villains to continue their unsavory practices, condemning Caroline to a slow and agonizing death inside the paralyzed body of Violet. It’s a dark payoff to The Skeleton Key‘s gothic horror mystery, and the final reveal comes in the form of Caroline’s sickening realization that all hope is lost.