The Skeleton Key is a 2005 horror-suspense film released in the UK on 22 July and in the USA on August 12. It is set in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana and has a cast led by Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, and John Hurt in an original screenplay by Ehren Kruger, directed by Iain Softley.

Plot

Caroline Ellis (played by Kate Hudson) is a New Orleans hospital aide from Hoboken, New Jersey, who quits her unsatisfying nursing job in the city to take a position as a private hospice caregiver at an isolated plantation house deep in the bayous of southern Louisiana's eerie, enchanting Terrebonne Parish. The lady of the house, Violet Deveraux (played by Gena Rowlands) is a diffident, old-fashioned Southern matron in need of help for her husband Ben (played by John Hurt), a severely disabled stroke victim who is expected to die soon.