Is The Skeleton Key Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot

A job offer from a house with no mirrors

Caroline Ellis quits her nursing-home job and becomes caretaker of a remote plantation house in Louisiana's Terrebonne Parish. The owner, Violet Devereaux, needs help with her husband Ben, who was mostly paralyzed by what looks like a stroke. The family lawyer, Luke Marshall, pushes Caroline to take the job, and she does. During a storm Ben tries to get out of his room. Caroline uses the skeleton key Violet gave her to look around the attic, where Ben supposedly had his stroke, and she finds a hidden room full of ritual objects. Violet explains that the room belonged to two servants, Mama Cecile and Papa Justify, who were skilled in hoodoo and were lynched after performing a rite with the children of the Thorpe family, who owned the house then. There are no mirrors in the house because Violet says she sees their reflections. Caroline also finds a record called Conjure of Sacrifice.

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A hoodoo shop hidden inside a laundromat

Caroline decides Ben's stroke came from hoodoo, but she suspects that his paralysis is really a result of what he believes, rather than anything supernatural. On her friend Jill's advice, she visits a hidden hoodoo shop inside a laundromat, and the woman there gives her tools and instructions for curing Ben. After she does the rite, Ben recovers some movement and speech and begs her to get him away from Violet. Luke stays skeptical when Caroline tells him about her suspicions, but he goes with her to a gas station lined with brick dust. She has been told that no one who means harm can cross it. A blind woman there explains that the Conjure of Sacrifice is a spell that steals the rest of a victim's years, and Caroline becomes sure Violet means to cast it on Ben.

A line of brick dust makes a very good lie detector

This is the scene people dread most, and it happens near the end, in the attic. Caroline sees that Violet cannot step across a line of brick dust at a doorway, which settles it. She disables Violet and tries to leave with Ben, but a chain holds the front gate shut. She hides Ben outside and goes to Luke for help, and Luke turns out to be on Violet's side and drives her back. Caroline escapes, fights Violet and shoves her down a staircase, which breaks Violet's legs. She uses brick dust to get away, retreats up to the attic, phones 9-1-1 and Jill, and casts what she thinks is a protective spell. Violet catches up and says Caroline has actually locked herself into a circle. Luke plays the record, Violet shoves a tall mirror at her that reflects first the Thorpes' daughter, then Violet, then Mama Cecile, and when the mirror hits Caroline, her soul and Violet's trade bodies.

Two very old guests who never left

Violet turns out to be Mama Cecile, who has been inside Violet's body through the Conjure of Sacrifice. She wakes up in Caroline's body and pours a potion down Caroline, who is now in Violet's body, which leaves Caroline paralyzed like Ben. Luke walks in upstairs and is actually Papa Justify, who took Luke's body after living as Ben, the same way Cecile did with Violet. Between them they have been running the Conjure on new victims since their supposed deaths, and right before the lynching they had traded bodies with the two Thorpe children. Hoodoo works only on people who believe in it, so they had to wait for Caroline to talk herself into belief through her own investigation. The next morning emergency crews come and remove Caroline and Ben, both stuck in dying bodies that cannot move. When Jill shows up, Luke informs her that the estate now belongs to Caroline, courtesy of the Devereauxes.