C'mon baby, let's do the Twist

The Skeleton Key had all the elements for me to hate it. The inevitable/obligatory "twist" ending and a cast headed by Goldie's daughter. It's funny, sometimes you watch movies wanting to love them and others you almost salivate the opportunity to tear it apart. Ever since "Sixth Sense" the modern thriller has become too clever for its own good. The twist endings usually wind up being dopey and the more you pick them apart the more dopey they get. All you need to do is watch "Gothika" or "Godsend" to prove that. I really miss Carlotta Valdez.

Skeleton Key certainly has its moments of eye-rolling because the skinny-cute-blonde-chick- is running into dark rooms filled with ghost noises, but overall this is one of the best "twisters" I've seen in a few years. The main reason for this post is I have a funny feeling that when 75% of the folks watch this movie they don't rewind far enough in the story. Sure, they were the black "folks"who were stealing bodies for renewal and it was rather clever how they did it. The real disturbing part however, which is probably why I like it, was that the house full of white vigilantes actually beat, hanged and burned........the children. How fucking creepy is that? That was a huge payoff in the storytelling that wasn't served up to the audience like the typical Scooby Doo ending in most thrillers. You know, where they spend two minutes explaining the previous 2 hours. They could've went cheeseball and flashed back to that original scene in the attic and showed the kids with evil eyes or the childlike horror in the murdered couple. The film gets major points for resisting that. I hate when films have to dumb down the ending. One example would be "Vanilla Sky" as opposed to the original (and far superior) "Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes)". I just spent two hours of my life watching this flick, let me figure it out. If I'm too damn stupid to figure it out then I should be watching Tim Allen movies anyway. All in all, well worth the rental, NetFlix queue and quite possibly the under $20 DVD purchase.