MovieChat Forums > The Skeleton Key (2005) Discussion > Imagine being young children and being d...

Imagine being young children and being dragged out into the yard...


...by your own parents to be hanged from a tree limb, and not being able to convince or stop them. It's terrifying enough for grown men, but then take into account they were still the minds of children and it was done to them by their own parents -- sheesh!

This movie was far too good to be so underrated. It deserves to be up there with movies like "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others", et. al.

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The scariest part is that lynchings like that weren't all too unusual in this country, even for the quite young.

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I saw the servants being lynched not the children

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Did you understand the film? At that point, the servants and the children had switched minds.

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It took me awhile to understand many things in this film. I watched it again after. Very good movie.

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Yes, they used the spell the Conjure of Sacrifice, a transference of souls. I thought this was a very good film, but the part with the children did unnerve me.

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you make me give up on life.

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It deserves to be up there with movies like "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others", et. al.


Funny you should say that because I thought the same exact thing after watching it, I called my cousin (who's a movie freak like me) and told him "have you seen this??? It's right up there with "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others"!!!" And whenever I talk about this movie that's the context I put it in. There are several other good movies out there with a twist, but these are the three that really shocked me in the end, the ones where you just didn't see coming.

I just watched this again last night, but obviously the rewatch is never as good as the first. I mean it's good because you get to pick up on all the little details knowing what you know, but only on the first watch do you get to experience the same reaction that you do when the twist is first revealed and you realize what's going on. The first time I actually had to go back and rewatch the whole thing movie right after I finished it. I was sincerely surprised, I had several ideas in my head but never thought about the body switching once.

Only then do you realize just how terrible some things are, and the part about the kids being trapped and burned is probably the one of the things that stands out the most. They were practically killed by their own father, and he never even knew it. Not to mention the lawyer being trapped in Ben's body the whole time and not being able to do anything.

While watching it last night, the one clue I'm surprised I didn't catch on to from the start is the smoking. Violet says she's a heavy smoker in the beginning, and then they show Mama Cecille smoking in the flashback. I didn't pay any attention to it until the final scene, but I suppose that could have been one of the biggest giveaways, I wonder how many people caught on to it or got suspicious?


Raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies are the reason I have trust issues.

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Felt the same way. Also add to that the shock of children suddenly being in adult bodies...

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I hate this movie for that reason. That is incredibly depressing to contemplate. The movie is very good but imagining how those poor children died is just too much. Just awful.

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I was happy the children got lynched. They deserved it and THEN SOME. They would end up (if they weren't already) just as racist as their parents. Plus, I'm sure theyve seen lynches of black people before. I know that because I've seen historical pictures of Black people hung by whites while their children watched.

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Maybe, you were not paying attention to the reality of the movie. The white people seemed under a spell when they lynched the children. The slaves in the children's bodies smirked as they watched. We do not know how bad the father was since the female slave was using half truths part truths when she told the story. Of course the irony would be two evil slaves ending up with a evil white man who was hard even on other white people.

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You think 2 fictional kids deserved being lynched (and worse, apparently!) because one time you looked at some old-timey photos? Oh, and because they might have turned out racist as adults? What a fantastic means of preventing bigoted adults.

Idiot.

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Well honestly, Justify and Cecile probably witnessed a lot of white men killing many innocent black slave children which wasn't very uncommon to their time period. Blacks were treated very inhumanly and had no rights. Not saying two wrongs make a right but Justify and Cecile probably thought it's about time the whites suffered even if it meant sacrificing innocent children.

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[deleted]

I hadn't yet thought about the kids being inside Justify & Cecile's bodies when I watched the lynching scene.
(I remember it being horrifying.) I've seen the movie 2-3 times, but only once from the beginning.

Now, as I think that they were supposed to be kids, I wonder if the actors had been directed to behave like children in any way? I remember them, naturally, kicking and screaming while being dragged to their deaths, but don't recall if they were yelling anything like "momma!", or "we're sorry". I may be filling in the blanks in my memory, but I'd swear I heard the girl say "we didn't know!"

As difficult and emotional as that scene must have been for the actors to play as adults, just imagine having to "react" as though you were a little girl/boy, knowing full well, even at that young age, what was about to happen to them. At the hands of their father.

Two modern-day actors having to behave like two "privileged" 1915 spoiled little white children, suddenly being trapped in their "negro" servant's bodies, being dragged to their certain doom. That's a lot of layers.
(Someone else noted on this board, the kids would have seen this happen; they knew what was coming.)

For the limited time they appeared onscreen, Ronald McCall and Jill Prescott made their characters vital and not to be forgotten. But if someone confirms that they had also layered the two children into that madhouse of a scene, it would be awe inspiring. What terrific actors.



Please use the elevator, the stairs are currently stuck between floors

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In the two body swaps we see, the older person "has a stroke" following the swap, rendering them unable to speak or walk. I had assumed that the children were unable to speak once they were transported into the bodies of Cecile and Justify.

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Either way,

There were young black kids getting yanked out of their homes to get lynched all the time. No one seemed to say anything about it, until they see two white kids getting the same treatment. Great job for the director to put this in the movie.

Also, whites used to dress up in their Sunday best to watch lynchings. Lynchings were also known as Barbecues if there was to be a torching as well.

Even worse? Before the person/child was lynched, they were sometimes castrated, or had their fingers cut off. If they were burned? The pieces were sold as souvenirs.

I also applaud the director, that for once? The black folks actually win in the end, instead of the other way around.


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Damn you are a sick pervert.

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They were living while black. A dangerous thing to do back then.

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Any dickhead that wishes the same treatment for children regardless of colors are fucking imbeciles, and I can see this post brought out lots of them. Just because black kids were lynched doesn't give the same treatment right way for white kids you nimrods!

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