SCREEN SCENE: ‘Skeleton Key’ tries to capture eerie Deep South magic

Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, August 17, 2005

I am still in mourning over a tragic loss I suffered in 1999.

That February, the Sci-Fi Channel stopped ordering new episodes of “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” Reruns still aired through January 2004, but the show was over, the magic gone.

Why do I still grieve, you ask? What the heck is Mystery Science Theater 3000, and what’s it got to do with “The Skeleton Key?”

Lowbrow movie buffs – and those who appreciate highbrow humor involving lowbrow movies – hail MST3K as a shining beacon of originality and wit on the budget of a high school play. An average Joe (played by the show’s head writers, Joel Hodgson and later Mike Nelson) was trapped on an orbiting satellite (named “The Satellite of Love,” for some unknown reason) and forced by evil scientists to watch cheesy movies. As the films played out, Joel or Mike and their robot companions could be seen silhouetted in their theater seats, making snide comments about the action on the screen.

I spent many a Saturday morning insisting to my family that this was my TV time and they could fix their own Frosted Flakes. As a result, I can proudly include on my list of viewed movies such films as “The Horror of Party Beach,” “Eegah!” and “The Wild Wild World of Batwoman.”

But recently, I’ve discovered a down side to being a Mistie.

I noticed this phenomenon at the movies a few weeks ago, watching a preview trailer for the DreamWorks futuristic thriller, “The Island.” A haunting realization crept into my brain: This was the plot to “Parts: The Clonus Horror,” a thundering dud of a flick that was ripped to shreds by Mike and the ‘bots in 1997. Why pay to go see “The Island” when I knew what was going to happen?

So fellow Misties, let me warn you: If you saw “The Touch of Satan” (Episode 908, Season Nine), the surprise twist ending of “The Skeleton Key” will hold no surprise for you.

Oh, the movie’s all right. In her most serious role to date, Kate Hudson plays a hospice worker who takes an in-home job in rural Louisiana caring for stroke victim John Hurt. His doting but persnickety wife Gena Rowlands’ Southern graciousness doesn’t hide her resentment for Hudson’s presence.

Things start out creepy (the swamp-surrounded mansion is 150 years old and shrouded in Spanish moss, for goodness’ sake) and get creepier when Hudson finds a secret room full of artifacts that suggest black magic and human sacrifice. There are no mirrors in the house, Rowlands tells Hudson, because in them she can see the ghosts of two servants who were murdered for practicing the folk magic known as Hoodoo a century earlier.

The deeper Hudson delves into Hoodoo, the more she’s convinced Hurt didn’t have a stroke but is the victim of his own belief that he has been hexed. And the more she proves her theory, the tighter the hold of the magic grows on her as well.

Having just spent a week visiting relatives on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, I can attest that director Iain Softley made a commendable effort to capture the steamy, weirdly beautiful atmosphere of the bayous. Commendable, but too clean and scripted to be authentic or truly scary.

Though Rowland’s Texas twang in “Hope Floats” was right on the money, she passes off a halfhearted lilt as a Deep South drawl in “The Skeleton Key.” Hurt’s nearly mute performance is worth a million words, though. How this able-bodied actor can make his features, especially his mouth and tongue, appear almost totally paralyzed is a feat I’ve not seen equalled.

At least, not in “The Screaming Skull” or its ilk from the MST3K archives.

Sometimes the nicest thing you could say about a bad movie is that it would make a great Mystery Science Theater episode. While it’s not perfect, “The Skeleton Key” deserves the greater compliment: that it would never wind up on the Satellite of Love.

(Editor’s note: Thanks to the hubbub from MST3K fans, the producers of “Parts” recently filed suit against DreamWorks for copyright infringement.)