Continuity mistake: When Luke brings Caroline back to the house after knocking her out, Violet demands to know where Ben is. In this shot her tears are black because of the mascara, but in the next shot all her blackened tears have disappeared.
The Skeleton Key (2005)
Directed by: Iain Softley
Starring: John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard, Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands
Revealing mistake: When Ben falls from the roof and into the leaves during the storm, you can see the mat that he lands on move from under the leaves.
Continuity mistake: When Caroline first arrives at the house for her interview, she closes her car door and it cuts to her reflection walking away from the left hand wing mirror of the car, as if she is walking to the back of the car. The next shot, however, she is walking away from the car door which is directly behind her (rather than the car boot). There is no way she would have been reflected in the wing mirror if she was walking at this angle.
Violet Devereaux: Child, I believe you broke my legs.
Caroline Ellis: It's like, hypnotism, right? Suggestion? And when this stuff works, its because someone believes it works?.. And if you thought, you know, that magic made you sick... you might believe in a magic cure?
Mama Cynthia: Somebody been workin' roots on you.
Caroline Ellis: Say I knew someone who thought that they'd been.
Mama Cynthia: Crossed?
Caroline Ellis: Crossed. Would they believe that they could be... uncrossed?
Caroline Ellis: Luke, she tried to kill me. She had a gun, I got away just in time but I had to leave Ben in the shed. We have to go back.
Luke: The hell we do.
Caroline Ellis: I left him there.
Luke: Slow down... You didn't leave anybody.
Question: What was the deal with the mirrors? Are there spirits in the mirrors? Or can Violet (or whoever's body happens to be inhabited) see her "true self" in the mirror? When Caroline first spends the night, a figure, like Mama Cecile, can be seen in her little mirror. If the spirit is in the body (Violet's), why would it be wandering around? So, the mirrors expose their true identity, correct?
Question: If the children's souls were transferred into the servants and saw they were about to be hanged, why didn't one of them simply say something like "Mom, Dad it's me. Please don't do this!"
Answer: In that particular scene with the servants and the kids, you'll notice that the servants' eyes are rolled back into their heads and they're shaking uncontrollably. I think this is because they were drugged. You'll also notice they never try to fight being hung, never cry out or anything. They just keep shaking with their eyes rolled upward.
They weren't drugged, they were in a possessed state.
Answer: Actually it's the opposite The servants (in the kids bodies) are watching the kids getting burned (in the servants bodies) they already switched bodies.
Question: Can someone please explain the ending to me? Did Luke use the spell too?
Chosen answer: The spell was performed on Luke at some point in the past by Violet's husband. Throughout the film, "Luke" is actually Justify in Luke's body.
Answer: Actually, as you see, the servants possessed the two children, so they didn't die right? And they both grew up to be violet and ben. Ben was ageing and became old so papa justify ended up taking control over Luke's (the lawyer) body and the real Luke was in ben's body. So papa justify and Luke had already switched bodies before the movie even started.
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Chosen answer: Yes.
Phixius ★