It's just like last Labor Day weekend, except I'm seeing the movies by myself. I'll have to remedy that. (Maybe I'll see Closer again in December, hopefully with similar results.)

This evening, I went to see The Skeleton Key. The film is set in an old Southern mansion in the swamps around New Orleans. The final shot of the film was an aerial shot of the mansion and surrounding swamp. As I watched this, I thought morbidly, "That house is probably underwater by now." All kidding aside, New Orleans is a great place to set a creepy film. It has the proper proportions of history, intrigue, magic, and the supernatural to make a good story.

The Skeleton Key, like many films of today, bills itself as some sort of supernatural film. Sadly, like many films of today, it ends up being a "psychological thriller." I want ghosts! But the ghost-to-not-ghost ratio in this film is more a fraction than an integer. This isn't to suggest that the movie isn't entertaining; it's just didn't quench my thirst for ghosts.

The story is rather predictable and, despite assertions (mostly on the insipid IMDb message board) that the ending is "good," the ending is also predictable. The ending is sort of a twist, but it's a predictable twist. Does that make sense? In terms of the plot, it was a twist, but you could figure out that's what was going to happen.

Aside from that, there are about exactly three scary parts, and none of them is actually that scary. They're "jump" moments. And what the crap is John Hurt doing here? It's like Marlon Brando in The Score or Frank Langella in Masters of the Universe. What's a good actor doing in this movie? And to what use is the award-winning British actor put? He's a freaking mute! They could have gotten Yahoo Serious at half the price, and he's Australian, which is close enough for a role in which he doesn't need to talk!

The saving graces of this film are Kate Hudson and Joy Bryant as her friend, both of them Hotty McHottersons. Sure, it's an okay thriller film, but at the end of the day, it's all about how many times you got to see Kate Hudson in a camisole and short shorts.