The Skeleton Key (HD-DVD/2005)
Picture:
B+ Sound: B+ Extras: D Film: D
Iain Softley
delivered an underrated film with K-PAX
and since then, I have been waiting for another pleasant surprise. After watching the awful The Skeleton Key (2005) with Kate Hudson and Peter Sarsgaard, I
have pretty much given up on him as a filmmaker. Hudson takes a job at a house deep in the
Louisiana bayou, when she may have come across a deadly secret that involves
voodoo or a variant. It is hard to tell
if the film even knows what it is talking about.
Though
promising for as time, the film quickly disintegrates when it is apparent the
Ehren Kruger screenplay runs out of ideas and does not know where to go. Performances are not bad at first, but it
eventually runs into self-parody with Gena Rowlands in particular unable to
take on the avalanche of silliness. The
film did not do well across the board, so how does it perform on HD-DVD?
The 1080p
VC-1 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is decent as this is a recent film
and Universal was thinking ahead for HD in this case, so the master was done
with proper consideration. Director of
Photography Daniel Mindel does a decent job shooting the film and the locations
help, but the script does not. The Dolby
Digital Plus 5.1 mix can be lively and is nicely recorded for the most part,
though not great and still too preoccupied with jumping sounds. Edward Shearmur’s score is not very
memorable.
Extras
include audio commentary by Softley, deleted scenes with commentary by Softley,
production featurettes Behind The Locked
Door - Making The Skeleton Key and Casting
The Skeleton Key, shorter featurettes Exploring
Voodoo/Hoodoo and Blues In The Bayou
music piece, Plantation Life, and A House Called Felicity, a ghost story
by Kate Hudson, a love spell from Gena Rowlands, John Hurt reading a disturbing
excerpt from the book Voices From Slavery
and even recipes!
- Nicholas Sheffo
