The Skeleton Key

Once upon a time there were a husband and wife named Justify and Cecile. They lived in a plantation home in New Iberia, Louisiana about an hour outside of New Orleans. They were the devoted slaves to the homeowners, who had two young children - a son and a daughter.

Unknown to their master and mistress, Justify and Cecile were practitioners of hoodoo - a form of black magic that makes voodoo look like hopscotch. Justify was a very powerful conjurer, and together with Cecile they created a spell that would make them immortal. The catch was, someone had to be sacrificed for the spell to work.

One day, the owners of the plantation had a big party. There was plenty of booze and things got a little carried away. As the guests were leaving they wanted to say goodbye to the children. When they went to see them, they couldn't be found. The guests searched the house high and low, and then finally found the children in the attic with Justify and Cecile. They were in the middle of a sacrificial ceremony with Justify deeply entranced and convulsing, and the children in the middle of a chalk circle surrounded by lit candles. The parents went ballistic. They trusted their slaves and were enraged that they would harass their children in this way. Justify and Cecile claimed they were just teaching the children how to protect themselves from black magic., but the parents and party guests weren't convinced. They formed a lynch mob and strung Justify and Cecile in the Spanish moss-draped oak tree in the front yard where they hung by the necks until they died.

But what nobody knew was that in order for the black magic spell of mortality to work, Justify and Cecile's souls would have to enter new bodies, or in other words, they would have to 'switch bodies' with those they were offering up for sacrifice. Just seconds before the mob of angry party guests seized the slave couple in the attic, they had already made the switch, and the unlucky hanging victims were actually the children in Justify and Cecile's bodies.

Fast forward fifty years. Justify and Cecile, known to everyone as the children of the plantation owners, have aged and must find new bodies to inhabit so they can continue to be immortal. They put the house up for sale, and before long the Devereaus came along. They purchased the house and were soon ensnared in the same hoodoo ritual. Justify and Cecile were now in fresh bodies, and the old couple's bodies housed the Devereaus souls, and were soon disposed of. When the Devereaus became old and the desire to change bodies once again presented itself, they were in need of new, young forms to take over.

They hired a young estate lawyer to help them get their affairs in order. Then Justify and Cecilia hatched a plan that would ensure they were financially taken care of in their new forms. The Devereaus had a will that left the entire estate to one if the other died. Justify took hold of the young lawyer's body, and then he in his new form and Cecilia invoked a curse on Mr. Devereau to make him ill and appear as if he had had a stroke, and kept him ill by feeding him malicious potions under the guise they were medicine to help him. The new home care worker, Caroline, didn't know any better at first, but soon realized something was fishy when Mr. Devereau surprised her by grabbing her wrist tightly and staring her down with a frightened glare. He was supposed to be in a catatonic state and unaware of his surroundings.

Confused yet? Well you'll just have to see the movie to see how it all ends. And now that I've managed to unravel the tangled web of a plot line, I'm going to bed!