You’re not from the South. You wouldn’t understand,” mutters Gena Rowlands’ creepy old crone to Kate Hudson (pictured) in Iain Softley’s The Skeleton Key. She’s right, you know. Drawing on a distinct southern gothic sensibility, this supernatural thriller serves up stuffed alligators, magic hexes and the whole damn gumbo as Kate Hudson goes to care for a stroke patient (John Hurt) in Louisiana, only to be drawn into all manner of spooky scenarios.
“It’s not strictly a voodoo film as you know,” explains director Iain Softley, who has directed movies as diverse as Backbeat, K-PAX and The Wings Of A Dove.
“It’s a hoodoo film. It’s not horror either. It’s very psychological and I’ve always loved films like that. I’m a big fan of The Shining, Don’t Look Now, Rosemary’s Baby and films that deal with the real world and the unknown beyond,” he says.
“That mystical or metaphysical take on reality is often quite literally haunting. But what was really fascinating for me was that the screenwriter Ehren Kruger stumbled on a belief system that was unique in the region.”
Ah, that would be hoodoo, the 19th century African-American folk magic, also known as conjuration, rootwork and tricking. A marriage of dream-divination, botanical medicine, charms and spells, it’s a faith often incorrectly confused with the Haitian religion, voodoo.
It’s also been horribly bastardised by white-man blues. When Ann Cole and Muddy Waters sang ‘I Got My Mojo Working’, for example, they were talking about their hoodoo spell, not their genitals: ‘mojo’ is derived from the West African word ‘mojuba’ meaning prayer.
“It’s anthropologically very specific,” explains Softley “Because New Orleans is a melting-pot of different superstitious and mystical beliefs, you find these strange hybrids like the Black Hawk cult. Black Hawk was a Native American who, particularly in Louisiana, became incorporated into evangelical Christian service.
“Then, after the 18th century revolution in Haiti, the plantation slaves decamped en masse to New Orleans bringing voodoo with them, often escaping into the swamps to live with Native Americans”.
Hoodoo touches on all of these things, he adds: “It combines these West African beliefs with Native American systems and European witchcraft, but it’s about spells rather than religion.”
From there, hoodoo found its way into early 20th century blues. Blind Lemon Jefferson sings of a hoodoo spell involving coffee and menstrual blood in ‘Dry Southern Blues’, while Robert Johnson references hoodoo charms such as foot powder (‘Hellbound On My Trail’ and ‘Stones In My Passway’) and mation sacks (‘Come On In My Kitchen’).
Happily, The Skeleton Key incorporates such material into the soundtrack, which features works from Robert Johnson (of course), ‘Mississippi’ Fred McDowell and Blind Willie Johnson.
“Delta blues was actually one of our main resources when we were researching The Skeleton Key,” smiles Softley. “Nice work if you can get it. The blues are an amazing repository of hoodoo and African-American history, so it was invaluable listening. To find out the hidden hoodoo meanings in Robert Johnson’s work and Muddy Water’s work was incredible. The only downside was narrowing down all the tracks we played on set for the soundtrack!”