Louisiana’s boggy, heavy atmosphere is a character as well as a backdrop for this 2005 thriller. Gena Rowlands at 75 is amazing in her role as feisty Violet Devereaux the wife of stroke victim Ben played by John Hurt. Home nurse, Caroline (Kate Hudson) answers an ad and finds herself becoming Ben’s live-in caretaker in a creepy old southern mansion where the mirrors are all mysteriously missing. An ornate skeleton key, a mysterious closed-up attic room, brick dust, musical chants, and hoodoo rituals blend together to cover a dark secret with a beautifully executed twist ending that this watcher didn’t see coming. This movie held my interest – I would watch it again.
