Skip to main content

Skeleton Key (requested)

Way back in 2005, my BFF and I got together for dinner. After dinner we decided to go to a movie. Being wild and crazy kids, we decided to just go to the theatre and see the first, not terrible option playing.

What's out?...

Four Brothers? Four adult men who were foster brothers seek vigilante justice for the murder of their former foster mother. Nooope. No. Nope.

Deuce Bigalow? I can barely translate the bullshit slew of words that make up the plot description into a cohesive description. What I can tell you is that it's got something to do with Rob Schneider. Fuck no.

Dukes of Hazard? ... No. No. Noooope. Low-brow, white-trash TV show turned full-length feature film starring Jessica Simpson and Seann William Scott - two of the stupidest humans on Earth.

Skeleton Key? Creepy voodoo horror shit? Well... okay. How bad can it be?

Tangent
I've written before about how idiotic movie characters are always asking, "How bad can it be?" just before the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan. We're a couple of smart, well-versed movie fans - we should have known better.

Secondary Tangent
When I'm particularly against a movie, I have a penchant for picking out stupid details to be annoyed about. A great example of this is Jeepers Creepers (a movie I despise) in which you can see the contacts the monster is wearing. In the case of Skeleton Key, I literally stop being able to pay attention to the movie at the point that Kate Hudson's eyeliner becomes deliberately, comically smudged into 80's goth proportions.

It's too limited and simplistic to just write that this movie is terrible. I want to be very clear about the level of terrible I mean to discuss here. We're not talking low-budget, amateur acting, with shoddy writing. We're talking about the significantly more heinous, big-budget, crapfest, filled with known actors turning in passable performances in the midst of decent (but not impressive) special effects all while wading through stories that aren't awful with writing that isn't terrific.

Literally everything about this movie is generic and "off the shelf." It brings nothing new to the horror genre. What a waste of time and money. And John Hurt. Who casts John Hurt to play a virtually speechless invalid? Yeah - her name is Ronna Kress and I'm sure she's a very nice person. 

When the movie ended, we zipped out of the theatre, looked at one another and went, "Fuuuuuuck. That movie was awful."

If you're not going to be awesome, just own being shitty. Being mediocre is immensely offensive.

Since then, its become a continuous joke between the two of us: I've given him a copy of the DVD and an "official" movie poster. Next year? He's getting the soundtrack.

This is what friends are for.

What? You want to watch the trailer? Alright:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rebuttal: 17 Disturbing Horror Movies You Will Never Watch Again

When I'm not watching movies, I'm reading about movies. I stumble across all kinds of articles, blog posts, book excerpts, etc. in my quest to absorb as much movie knowledge as possible. Now, I'm snotty and loud-mouthed and opinionated but I'd never begrudge another human their opinion. Seriously. You're absolutely welcome to have any opinion about any thing you want. However, I must warn you, if I think your opinion is stupid, I'm absolutely going to say so. I've recently stumbled on an article completely  brimming with so many idiotic opinions that I'm actually compelled to craft a response. Here's the gist of the original article: there are some horror movies out there that are so disturbing , you'll only ever want to watch them once. I've have taken her original list and refuted her claims without pulling her entire article over. You can read the original article here . Let's start at the beginning, with her opening statement

Escape From Tomorrow

I love creative people who are willing to take risks with their art. I appreciate the refusal to do things by the rules. I'm also terribly impatient with mediocrity. Enter  Escape From Tomorrow . Created by a team of rogue filmmakers, the movie was shot in the video mode of high-end still cameras. Actors shared scripts and shooting locations across their smartphones. Shot on location at Disney World, the parks were completely unaware this was all going on right under their mouse ears. I wanted to love Escape From Tomorrow. More than that, I wanted to be completely taken with its ingenuity and creativity and - oh yes - its originality. And there is really a simple brilliance to their covert plan; all families are roaming around the parks, taking videos and chatting on their phones. Just blend the fuck in, act like you belong, and you won't get caught. Too bad the movie can be summed up as: ambitious but Rubbish. As you can imagine (or possibly know), there was a ton of con

Mother!

Alright friends and readers–this one is probably doubly filled with typos and grammar errors because I wrote it while angry. Good luck and happy reading. There are unpopular opinions in every realm. As a film student, you can truly strike a nerve when you say things like, "I fucking hate the self-indulgence of independent films and the way people idolize them." Or, you know, "Low lighting and slow pacing does not a good movie make." Or whatever. You can of course, objectively, understand how this happens. When you are creating art–when you are outside the system  so to speak–you are free to explore things (subjects, techniques, etc.) that may need to be addressed and that freedom can become intoxicating and go to one's head. While it may seem only right  or only fair  to respect and accept each creative endeavor that every artist undertakes, it is unreasonable to believe that the world will remain forever patient with the self-obsession artists have. Th