“I wanted to write a distinctly American, non-traditional ghost story,” says screenwriter Ehren Kruger, who penned the hit thriller The Ring. “The South, especially Louisiana, struck me as a pure American milieu, a cultural melting pot. I thought that one way to create a unique ghost story would be to have the audience question whether or not they are, in fact, seeing a ghost story at all. I also believe that a classic Gothic notion among most human beings is a desire to find out what is behind the forbidden door. I actually wanted to find out for myself what would be behind that attic door.”

The Skeleton Key, a supernatural thriller set in a contemporary setting, struck a chord with director Iain Softley. “Some of my favorite films are psychological thrillers, like Don’t Look Now, Rosemary’s Baby, Angel Heart. I felt that this script followed along the same lines. It was both intelligent and thematically rich, as well as really entertaining.”

A cursory glance at director Iain Softley’s body of work, which also includes Universal’s K-PAX, an intricate meditation on the very nature of reality, seems to offer little common ground. However, on closer examination, a simple thread is found weaving through his work. He supplies, “I wanted this film to be based in reality, not too Gothic or over-stylized, and make full use of the authenticity and the flavor that is unique to this area. What haunts me about pictures like this is the possibility that these worlds still exist. I think audiences are hungry to be scared in the real world of today.

“I thought the script was a wonderful page-turner, and it was so evocative of sense of place—New Orleans and the Deep South—but it also had a wonderful mood. I also thought that it dealt with aging, which is something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, in a very interesting way. I’ve always been drawn to psychological horror because it deals with our perceptions, what we imagine to be going on. Oftentimes, that is far scarier than anything that is actually represented,” adds Softley.

Producer Daniel Bobker—who brought Kruger’s script to Softley and then to Universal, where producers Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher came aboard—came to The Skeleton Key on the heels of the enormous task of producing the upcoming Terry Gilliam film, The Brothers Grimm. He sees his latest project as “lushly atmospheric and haunting, which I think the best ghost stories are. You want to feel someone breathing behind your neck and Iain Softley is the ideal kind of director for this material. He’s a naturalist who brings great reality, an almost unnerving quality to what he’s shooting. He’s a director with a tremendous eye for detail and atmosphere and suffusing that with tension and dread. Iain has a gift for getting the dramatic weight out of not only performances, but places, designs, music and textures.”

The filmmakers and Softley—who counts among his credits films in varying genres, from The Wings of the Dove, the four-time Academy Award®-nominated adaptation of the Henry James novel, to the intriguing drama K-PAX—assembled a cast of powerful award-winning actors to portray the rich characters that inhabit the foreboding Louisiana mansion at the center of The Skeleton Key.

Kate Hudson, nominated for an Academy Award® for her luminous performance as Penny Lane in Almost Famous, plays Caroline Ellis, a hospice worker who has recently arrived in New Orleans and is hired by Violet Devereaux to care for her ailing husband, Ben. Hudson, who appears in almost every scene, was selected to create the central character of Caroline early on in the process.

“Kate was the first actress we thought of for the role,” says Softley. “After Daniel Bobker brought the script to me, it went very quickly to Universal. When Kate first saw it, she loved it and was cast. But then, we were hit with a bombshell—Kate became pregnant. We were more than willing to put the production on hold for almost a year until she was ready to begin work. It turned out to be a good decision because I think that the birth of her baby has given her the maturity and added life experiences that have definitely helped give extra layers to what she has brought to the film.”

Daniel Bobker comments, “Kate was such an inspired choice for the role. She’s always has tremendous appeal as an ‘everywoman,’ which in a horror film makes the suspense and scares that much more visceral and compelling. Kate’s an actress who audiences want to go on a journey with, and this story really shows her range beyond the lighthearted fare she’s shined in previously. We all found her an uncanny fit for Caroline, and her performance energized the entire production.”

The Skeleton Key spotlights Kate in a role she’s never played before. “This is not a lighthearted Kate Hudson,” says Michael Shamberg, producer and partner with Stacey Sher in Double Feature Films. “She’s more mature, a little darker. Kate has a magical quality of being incredibly available to the audience. She’s put into a really scary situation—and someone as relatable as Kate is inspires great empathy, and that makes it even scarier.”

Reflecting on the serious nature of her character, Hudson says, “Caroline is a serious girl which I found intriguing. It was nice not to have to smile all the time. She’s a curious, strong young woman who becomes increasingly isolated as the story unfolds. She want to be a nurse, so she’s a person accustomed to science and the explainable. It takes a great deal to get her to question her beliefs. And nothing about this story is unbelievable, which gets Caroline questioning. That believability is what makes the story so disturbing.”

Hudson, who did all her own stunts, reveals that she loved the physicality of it. “I think the stunt coordinator was surprised to find out that my coordination was pretty good,” laughs Hudson. “I got to break windows, climb up a two-story trellis and crawl through mud in the pouring rain. One day I looked down at my knees and they were black and blue, just like when I was a kid and played soccer. At one point I was actually soaking wet for 15 hours. I loved it. Nothing like going home after a long day’s work with war wounds. It was so much fun.”

Peter Sarsgaard, honored with a Golden Globe nomination for his role in Shattered Glass and critically acclaimed for his searing performance in Boys Don’t Cry, was signed to portray the affable southern estate lawyer Luke Marshall, who works for the Devereauxs. “One is never sure if he’s being ingenuous…or not,” describes Sarsgaard of his mysterious character. “He’s a little over his head in a job that becomes increasingly difficult as the story unfolds. He is a nonbeliever and it’s only after he begins to believe that things start to get really frightening.”

Legendary actors with Oscar® and Golden Globe nominations and Emmys to their credit, Gena Rowlands and John Hurt play Violet and Ben Devereaux, an enigmatic couple whose surface appearance belies an unspoken and mysterious subtext.

Bobker offers, “The truly classic horror films are often grounded with illustrious actors who make the story feel both immediate and real, in a way that allows the audience to believe in it all. We were extremely lucky to land master thespians like Gena Rowlands and John Hurt to play the Devereauxs, as they provide the Louisiana setting and culture with a layer of exquisite richness and authenticity.”

Producer Stacey Sher comments, “Working with distinguished actors the caliber of Gena Rowlands and John Hurt is like going to acting school for everybody. Gena is so compelling in her part that she looks like she’s lived in that house all her life. And John, who barely has a word of dialogue in the entire film, brings tremendous sympathy to a central role at the crux of the mystery of the house. He is able to drive the movie’s mood and atmosphere and narrative pace without even uttering a word. Who can communicate more without words than John Hurt?”

Gena Rowlands portrays Violet, a faded southern belle living with her husband in a decaying mansion deep in the Louisiana bayou. It soon becomes clear that their relationship is not all that it first appears to be.

Reflecting on her role, Rowlands says, “I play a very spooky old lady who works at keeping Kate’s character, Caroline, off-balance. Violet spends much of her time in her garden because, like Violet herself, a garden transforms itself every year. I can relate to this.”

For the role of Ben Devereaux, whose character is largely confined to a wheel chair, Softley cast the distinguished English actor John Hurt. Well known for his classic role in 1980 film The Elephant Man, Hurt explains what he feels comprise the right ingredients for a good thriller: “Every thread of the story has to be kept visible all the way through…and then paid off neatly. The clues may be disguised a bit, but they must be evident in the end to make the story work. Ehren Kruger has created such a script.”

Joy Bryant—who was featured as the female lead in director Denzel Washington’s acclaimed directorial debut Antoine Fisher—plays Jill, Caroline’s best friend and her voice of reason.

Producer Sher comments, “Joy brings an effervescent quality to her role. In some ways, she speaks for the audience, the one who warns Caroline, ‘Don’t go into that room.’”

“There were many things that attracted me to this project,” says Bryant. “The cast, Iain and his team, the story, the location—it’s this great mix of just the right amount of everything. In that way, it’s kind of like New Orleans itself. There is just so much going on and everywhere you look, there are stories. When you’re there, it doesn’t even really feel like you’re in the States—it’s definitely its own place.”