YMMV / The Skeleton Key

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • It's said that the children's father committed suicide. Was it due to the Great Depression? Or did he somehow find out that the servants had taken his children's bodies and he had lynched his own children to death?
  • Suggesting that Jill go with Violet in the ambulance at the end: The couple wanting to be alone and enjoy their new bodies? Or part of a plan to get Jill to believe so Cecile can finally inhabit the body of a black girl?
  • How did Cecile and Justify feel about the children being lynched in their bodies? Their faces when it happens seem pretty horrified. So is it a case of Even Evil Has Standards? Or did they just view the children's deaths as a mere unfortunate side effect? Notably they never take the bodies of children again, despite the fact that getting most children to believe in Hoodoo would be pretty much effortless in any era. You may draw your own conclusions.
  • Cecile and Justify's aversion to mirrors. Cecile claims that ghosts are made visible through mirrors and she freaks out when she finds a mirror in the hall. Was she genuinely worried that mirrors would be inviting ghosts into their space (perhaps the spirits of their past victims), or is this just empty superstition they use as a method of drawing Caroline in so that she would be more susceptible to their magic?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Hoodoo is a real folk practice, albeit not as sinister as the film tries to make it (and contrary to what Jill implies in her Info Dump, most of its adherents are Protestant Christians - in other words, God has everything to do with it).
• Awesome Music: The film is set in Louisiana and makes great use of a jazz soundtrack.
• Cult Classic: After the Hollywood Hype Machine failed to make a star out of Kate Hudson, only Almost Famous is a film of hers that was praised at the time of release and fondly remembered (before her comeback role in Glass Onion. However this one has a growing number of fans, most of them praising her performance, the Southern Gothic atmosphere, the unique story, and unhappy ending.
• Fanon: Despite the movie leaving it open, it's almost universally agreed that Cecile is planning to at least try to steal Jill's body next, so she can finally have a black girl's body.
• Funny Moments: "Well child, I believe you broke both my legs."
• Hilarious in Hindsight: "They got 'gators in the swamps, and guys missing teeth!" is said to Caroline by her best friend at the beginning of the movie. Come 2009, she's actually accidentally exactly describing The Princess and the Frog: also very notably set in New Orleans, also featuring voodoo/hoodoo, also largely set in the swamps, has its protagonists almost eaten by alligators, and has a major character who is a guy missing a tooth (Ray)...
• Narm Charm: 'Caroline' talking like an old lady, using expressions like "fiddlesticks" at the end.
• One-Scene Wonder: The blind woman in the gas station.
• Paranoia Fuel: Those two servants could steal any body they wished, as long as they were able to manipulate someone into believing.
• Rewatch Bonus: A lot of Violet's dialogue takes on a new meaning once you know the ending.
  • "You're skinnier than I would have hoped. Prettier though", as well as the talk about tattoos and piercings. She's checking out the merchandise.
  • "Don't bother with the housework. I'm the only one that knows how." Violet's been taking care of the house for over ninety years.
  • Her rather detailed account of the night the servants were lynched, as well as her knowledge of Papa Justify. A) She was there and B) of course she knows her own husband.
• She Really Can Act: A lot of people expressed surprise at Kate Hudson's performance here. Pleasant surprise.
• Squick: The two servants inhabited the bodies of Martin and Grace. As in a husband and wife inhabited a brother and sister. The bodies of which were pre-pubescent children; let that sink in while realizing the minds inhabiting these bodies, were married adults which would have adult sex-drives... Extra Squick if they did anything else before finding other bodies. At least they went for a married couple next.
• Tear Jerker: The death of the patient at the beginning of the film. After being told his family want nothing to do with him, Caroline goes to dump a box of his belongings in the garbage. We then see that the trash is full of other such boxes. Remnants of an entire person's life just thrown out because their friends or family couldn't care less. Becomes almost a little more heartwarming when we see that Caroline keeps something of the man's, almost as a Due to the Dead. Likewise there is something rather sad that an elderly man on his deathbed wishes to be read Treasure Island. As he lies dying, with no family or friends (except his nurse), the thing that comforts him is a children's story.

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