The Skeleton Key Wallpaper

The Skeleton Key is a 2005 British Scary-Suspense film released in the UK on 22 July and in the USA on August 12. It is set in Louisiana, more specifically, the Terrebonne Parish, and stars Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands and John Hurt and an otherwise American cast in an original screenplay by Ehren Kruger, directed by Iain Softley.

Caroline (Hudson) is a New Orleans hospital aide who, after her latest patient dies, quits her "medibusiness" job and takes a position as a private hospice caregiver at an isolated bayou manor-house . The lady of the house, Violet (Rowlands) is a diffident woman who requires help to care for her husband Ben (Hurt), who suffered a serious stroke which has left him paralyzed and speechless, with about a month left to live. Violet gives Caroline a skeleton key to open every room within the large mansion, except for a small room hidden in the attic, which is where Ben had his stroke. This does not stop Caroline from eventually getting that room, after something inside apparently rattles the door, and uncovering bizarre items including jars of pickled organs, magical objects, and a fullsize voodoo doll. Violet tells Caroline that the room belonged to two black servants who had lived in the house in the 1920s, Mama Cecile (Jeryl Prescott) and her husband, Papa Justify (Ron McCall) under a cruel master who had them lynched for practicing hoodoo in the presence of their children. Caroline dismisses this as superstition, but the longer she stays in the house, the more and more strange events occur to only pique her curiosity more about the obscure (to her) swamp religions and their relationship to the physical condition of Ben, whom she has become determined to save and restore to health.

Caroline, after realizing that Violet is working harmful spells on Ben, seeks the help of the young lawyer Luke (played by Peter Sarsgaard, with an unconvincing Southern accent) hired to rewrite Violet and Ben's wills. While in Luke's house, Caroline discovers clues leading to the revelation that Luke is in fact assisting Violet with a hoodoo ritual to take the remaining years of Caroline's life and give them to Violet. Too late. Luke captures Caroline and takes her back to the manor to finish the ritual of putting Violets soul into Carolines body, revealing that the whole time Ben's body contained the soul of Luke. This is one without a happy ending.