Undertow / The Skeleton Key

A double bill of horror/thrillers. In 'Undertow' Jamie Bell plays Chris, a troubled teenager with a bizarre eating disorder, in this dark and lyrical thriller. Chris has moved with his little brother to his father John's (Dermot Mulroney) cabin in backwoods Georgia following their mother's death.

Looking after his brother, Chris struggles with his own propensity to eat paint and dirt until he's sick. But then his violent uncle Deel (Josh Lucas) arrives, fresh from prison, and Chris finds himself on the run with his brother, trying to stay one step ahead of his deranged uncle. Whilst 'The Skeleton Key' is set in New Orleans where Caroline (Kate Hudson) is a care worker who moves in with terminally ill Ben (John Hurt) to look after him.

Suspicious of his emotionally cold wife Violet (Gena Rowlands), and able to sense a strange atmosphere in the house, Caroline gets hold of a skeleton key that allows her access to the house's many locked rooms. In the attic she finds a room decked out with the grotesque remains of a voodoo ritual, although Violet claims not to have known of its existence. As Ben suffered his stroke shortly after discovering the room himself, Caroline is determined to find the secret to the sinister house, and its dark history as a centre of occult worship.