It’s like Halloween has come early this year. The Skeleton Key is the first of four horror/suspense thrillers that comes out over the next three weeks. This week’s release of this movie will be followed by the releases of Red Eye on August 19, The Brothers Grimm and The Cave both on August 26.

But despite my love of anything horror, I’m really not thrilled.

The Skeleton Key follows Caroline Ellis (Hudson) as she adjusts to a new position as a hospice worker. She cares for a patient who cannot speak or move, Ben Devereaux (Hurt), because of a stroke. But she is at odds with Ben’s wife, Violet (Rowlands) and confides in her friend, Jill (Bryant) and the estate lawyer for the Devereaux’s, Luke (Sarsgaard).

Caroline suspects that Violet has had something to do with Ben’s current condition. But it isn’t the usual type of foul play, like a slow poisoning or something along those lines. It involves hoodoo. It’s like voodoo, but less religion and more magic.

There is a tragic back-story to the Devereaux home involving murder and hoodoo that lead to mysterious events that may be explained by the ghosts of former inhabitants who appear to be haunting the home.

The explanation that unfolds is not the usual revenge of the spirits resolution that usually unfolds at the end of these ‘spooky’ mysteries. Is it as shocking of a twist as the trailers claim, bigger than The Sixth Sense? It’s definitely more complicated, and there’s far less holes in the plot. But shocking? Not really! More like, “I should have known”.

The Skeleton Key is a decently written story that comes to us compliments one of the writers of Scream 3, Ehren Kruger, who also happens to have written The Brothers Grimm. Scream 3 was directed by Wes Craven, who will be bringing us Red Eye. But Scream 3 was released five years ago. The Skeleton Key and The Brothers Grimm are being released two weeks apart. Technically, Kruger could have been writing these both for years and they just happen to be getting released together. And there are other writers on both films. But I think it is more likely that they were written in a bit of a rush.

This is the core of the problem. Hollywood is more concerned about quantity, not quality. Furthermore, I’m enraged by the trend of everything having to be PG-13. Some of us embrace the dark side and ought to be able to revel in it.

The ending can be pieced together to make sense of all the events and doesn’t leave any of the usual, “But if that’s true, then that doesn’t make any sense” sort of mutterings.

If you have an open mind about hoodoo and similar practices, the events of the film will likely not be that terrifying to you. I, myself, am a practicing Wiccan, a spiritual philosophy similar to hoodoo in the realm of magic and performing of spells. So I was a bit disappointed that I did not find the film to be that scary. I expected some of the scares to come from the fear of not knowing anything about hoodoo and the like. But I think the movie placed all of its scare tactics there, which just didn’t work on me.

But if you are uncomfortable with the casting of spells and the idea of the afterlife, then The Skeleton Key may disturb you greatly.

But what’s more disturbing is the lack of depth of characters. Sure we know that Caroline is perpetually trying to redeem herself because she wasn’t around when he father passed away from an illness and he died alone and so now it is her mission to prevent as many people as she can from meeting the same fate by working tirelessly in hospice.

But what about Violet and Ben? What makes us feel for them? We don’t get to know them as well as we should. We get a passing dialogue about Ben being Violet’s everything from Luke. But this is a movie. Show it.

Caroline’s friend, Jill, seems to only be in the film as she’s black and hoodoo is a predominantly black religion so ‘naturally’ she has an aunt who dabbles in it so she can show Caroline where to pick up some ingredients for the casting of spells. Their relationship really doesn’t go much deeper than that.

The estate lawyer, Luke, has the responsibility of hiring the hospice workers for the Devereaux’s (Caroline is the fifth). I don’t know much about estate law, but does the estate lawyer usually do that sort of thing?

When the ending is revealed, it makes sense. But part of the fun in a mystery is dropping hints, of which this film had almost none.

And it is supposed to be a thriller. I found it to be mediocre, at best. Thank you PG-13 rating, and thank you Hollywood, for another waste of my time.

The ending had the potential to be highly unsettling, but isn’t because you don’t care for the characters that much. Perhaps if you put yourself in their place, you might achieve the desired effect the filmmakers missed creating. But if you’re truly seeking to be disturbed, just turn on the TV and watch any one the latest reality shows. At least they’re free.

Grade: C-