‘Skeleton Key’ offers enjoyably cheap thrills

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In theaters

THE SKELETON KEY, Directed by Iain Softley, written by Ehren Kruger, 104 minutes, rated PG.

The new Iain Softley film, “The Skeleton Key,” is one hoodoo of a movie – literally. It’s a movie about hoodoo, voodoo and cheap thrills set in a Louisiana backwater.

The film is a ripe Southern Gothic, just this side of moldy, with Softley playing the first half of the story straight before smoking some homegrown hoodoo himself to deliver a final half that embraces, shall we say, its share of absurdity.

The film finds its star, Kate Hudson, breaking free from the string of disappointing romantic comedies that have plagued her career since her excellent, Academy Award-nominated performance in 2001’s “Almost Famous.”

Here, she pulls a Naomi Watts and a Jennifer Connelly by hopping the tracks into horror, which turns out to be a shrewd move for a woman whose career has become such a horror. While the movie is far from the showpiece Hudson deserves, she nevertheless is able to reveal appealing new dimensions that the slight, meet-cute formula of her previous films haven’t allowed her to show.

She’s not alone in mixing things up.

Based on Ehren Kruger’s script, “The Skeleton Key” also stars venerable actress Gena Rowlands. Like Bette Davis before her in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” and the movie “The Skeleton Key” most resembles, 1964’s “Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte,” Rowlands has apparently reached that zenith in her career when it’s perfectly sane to go a little nuts onscreen.

True, she doesn’t go as far as Joan Crawford did in her final two films, the infamous camp keepers “Berserk!” and “Trog,” but there is a scene with Rowlands that involves compound fractures, a foul, bourbon-soaked mouth and lots of low crawling that’s one for the record books.

In the movie, Hudson is Caroline, a Big Easy hospice worker who agrees to take a job on the aforementioned backwater, in spite of urgings from her friend, Hallie (Fahnlohnee Harris), not to do it. “Girl, crazy things happen out there,” Hallie says. “I don’t know, sugar – you better think twice.” Or something like that.

Anyhoodoo, it comes down to this: Caroline gets in her vintage VW Beetle and takes off for the job. On the rundown plantation, which looks peculiarly like the one in “Charlotte,” she meets sketchy Violet (Rowlands), who likes to smoke long, thin cigarillos with flare; her lawyer, Luke (Peter Sarsgaard), who doesn’t; and Violet’s dying husband, Ben (John Hurt), who apparently had a massive stroke.

In this house of no mirrors, things get weird behind all those locked doors, the skeleton key to which Caroline was given by Violet. While she cares for Ben, curiosity leads her into every one of those rooms, particularly (and naturally) the attic, in which something appears to be trying like hell to get out.

Caroline tries like mad to get in, which leads to all sorts of problems, the likes of which won’t be revealed here because it’s at this point that the movie gets good – really good – in its own cheap, awful way.

Look, “The Skeleton Key” isn’t a great movie by any stretch, but when a film’s actors obviously are having this much fun slumming – and that fun morphs into subversive entertainment for us – there isn’t a better summertime remedy, Southern or otherwise.

Grade: B

On video and DVD

THE WEDDING DATE, Directed by Clare Kilner, written by Dana Fox, 90 minutes, rated PG-13.

Clare Kilner’s cute, formulaic romp, “The Wedding Date,” follows Kat Ellis (Debra Messing), a desperate Virgin Atlantic employee who hires a gigolo for $6,000 so she can save face at her sister’s wedding in London, where Kat’s ex-fiance, Jeff (Jeremy Sheffield), happens to be best man.

Since it’s Jeff who dumped Kat, she finds it unthinkable to show up at the wedding alone. Call her crazy, but in spite of all that she has going for her – her sense of humor, her charm, her looks, a successful career – her self worth is nevertheless placed on who she’s with, not who she is.

And so along comes Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney), a smoldering wedge of Wellington with a Brown education to match his bedroom brown eyes. Nick is, as they say, a professional escort, which in Kat’s case doesn’t necessarily mean sex for cash, but the sort of guy who can look good on her arm, read a situation, understand his part in it, flirt with her just enough to make Jeff jealous, and provide the necessary mortar to make sure nothing crumbles during their long weekend abroad.

That is, of course, should he and Kat manage to remain emotionally uninvolved.

Based on a script by Dana Fox, “The Wedding Date” is slight and it knows it. It has no pretentions. It’s an odd little fairy tale about a single woman and her paid stud, with obvious echoes of “Pretty Woman,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” which also starred Mulroney, running throughout it.

A compendium of those films is achieved here, and while much of it fails to be new or believable, “Date” still entertains. The film is brisk, the chemistry between Messing and Mulroney is undeniable, sometimes the dialogue is bright, and the stock characters are appealing, particularly Holland Taylor as Kat’s mother, Peter Egan as her father, and Sarah Parish as her ripe, anything-goes cousin.

As for Messing, she’s a movie star. This is her first starring role in a movie and she proves consistently watchable – even if the material isn’t exactly fresh, and even if she is only playing a variation of her character Grace from “Will and Grace.” Is there something deeper for Messing to reveal? Don’t bet against her.

Grade: B

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, Weekends in Television, and are archived at Rotten

Tomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Alexander – C

A Very Long Engagement – A

The Aviator – A

Bad Education – A

Beauty Shop – C-

Bride & Prejudice – B

The Brown Bunny – C

Coach Carter – B-

The Chorus – A-

Collateral – B+

Constantine – C-

Cypher – C+

Darkness – D+

A Dirty Shame – B

House of Flying Daggers – A

The Incredibles – A

In Good Company – B+

Kung Fu Hustle – A

Ladder 49 – B

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou – D+

A Lot Like Love – D

Meet the Fockers – C

Million Dollar Baby – A

Muppet Show: Season One – A

The Notebook – B+

Ray – A

The Ring 2 – C-

The Sea Inside – A-

Sin City – A-

Team America: World Police – B-

The Truman Show (Special Edition) – B+

Upside of Anger – B

Vintage Mickey – B+

The Wedding Date – B