Skeletons in the Closet

I recently viewed Skeletons in the Closet (2024) on Shudder. The plot revolves around a family facing adversity, with a terminally ill daughter and a father who loses his job, making it challenging to cover medical expenses. The mother turns to a spirit from her past for help, but at what cost?

Directed by Asif Akbar (Clown Motel), the film features Terrence Howard (Crash), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire), Udo Kier (Suspiria), Clifton Powell (Ray), and Michelle Wang (Ruthless).

Regrettably, this movie is a disaster. Despite a promising setup and realistic circumstances, the execution falls short. There are a couple of cool costumes, such as the scarecrow and voodoo skull guy, but even with a stellar cast, the acting consistently feels inauthentic, and the dialogue is inconsistent. The reactions to certain situations fail to evoke the intended impact, and Udo Kier's character and scenes could have been much better. The voodoo/seance subplot also misses the mark.

In conclusion, Skeletons in the Closet had potential in its setup but suffers from poor execution. There's little to appreciate here, making it unworthy of your time. I would give it a 2/10 and suggest skipping it.

Without ever having heard about this 2024 horror movie titled "Skeletons in the Closet" from director Asif Akbar, of course I opted to sit down and watch it, given my love and fascination of the horror genre. And sitting down with zero expectations here, there was plenty of room for director Asif Akbar to impress me.

Ugh, the storyline was all over the place and nowhere all at once. It felt like writers Joshua A. Cohen, Terrence Howard, Mira Pak Howard and Koji Steven Sakai were writing stories independently of one another without talking together at all, then collectively handing in four scripts for director Asif Akbar to try to piece together like a puzzle to form a coherent storyline and make a movie. It just didn't work.

I have to say that I found the storyline in the movie to be really bad. The stories of Mark (played by Terrence Howard) and Valentina (played by Valery M. Ortiz) just didn't really have anything to do with one another. It was like watching two different movies layered over one another, with neither of them making much sense as it was befuddled by the other storyline.

There are so many things in the movie that serves the narrative absolutely no purpose, such as the scarecrow scene and the scene with the loanshark.

The movie actually has good cast ensemble, with the likes of Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., Louis Mandylor and Udo Kier, to mention the most recognizable of the actors and actresses that participated in the movie.

Most of the times when they cut from one scene to another, the cut was accompanied by a loud noise and a flash of color. Going for some cheap jump scares, and it just grew tiring rather early on in the movie, and yet it continued on throughout the entire movie.

Yeah, "Skeletons in the Closet" was a swing and a miss of a movie, and I was struggling to sit through it, coming very close to giving up entirely around 55 minutes into the boredom that was the storyline in the movie. But I endured and sucked it up, soldiering on and actually finishing the movie. Was I impressed by "Skeletons in the Closet"? Not even remotely.

If you enjoy horror movies, do yourself a favor and don't waste 92 minutes of your life sitting through this.

My rating of "Skeletons in the Closet" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

I hate to be overwhelmingly negative when it comes to my reviews, but unfortunately I don't have much positive to say about this one... so I'll try to keep it brief.

From the moment it started till the final scene I almost consistently wanted to turn it off. The script was poorly written and felt juvenile. The editing and CGI were hokey and surprisingly low quality. This movie was almost the antithesis of atmospheric and there was practically nothing scary throughout. Many scenes were over lit and riddled with stagnant wide shots making it feel very amateurish. Stylistically it was just all wrong.

The story was nothing particularly engaging or original either, full of unnecessary and inconsequential aspects such as the scarecrow, the mobsters and many others. The general quality of the picture was crisp and nice which often times was beneficial, yet at other points really detracted from any semblance of atmosphere. I didn't even realize that the acting was really quite good until about halfway through because even the best acting can be hidden under poor angles, clunky editing and a bad script.

There were some really solid performances here, particularly from the mom, her father, her husband and the husband's brother. It is obvious that they used the majority of their budget on casting and let other things suffer because of it.

I do not like to and very rarely give out 2s. I really wanted to round up to at least 3 with this one for the acting, but unfortunately it was too much of an overwhelmingly negative experience on multiple fronts. 2.5 rounding down to a 2, would not recommend.

After a series of setbacks, a family confronted with the idea of a returning spirit that has haunted her from childhood that seems to be caused by a longstanding curse as the reasoning for everything and must resort to dangerous practices to protect their family from these forces.

This was a massively disappointing and barely worthwhile effort. Among its few bright spots here that make this a decent enough setup with the family going through their struggles which gets everything going in a decent enough clip. The family history that includes a series of confrontations and counters with spirits from a child into adulthood signals the start of a tragedy which starts to rear its head again with the newfound diagnosis of the daughter which puts them into the mindset of trying whatever means necessary to save her. This upsetting of the supernatural realm manages to be somewhat chilling as a concept due to the use of the demonic figure as a starting point to get the central deal together. This is all pretty much the best part about this one. That leaves the film with a veritable slew of issues.to hold this back. The main problem is that it's nearly impossible to care what's going on since all the sub-plots here don't come together in any shape or form. Featuring a series of sidestories involving a gangster holding him accountable for a monetary loan to cover the necessary surgery for the removal of her cancer, the mother's struggles with her faith go nowhere which is due to the sudden introduction of the strange spiritual figure that comes for her, and the interactions of the rother who just got out of prison that sets him up with the mob boss in the first place, this one has way too much going on that's just not interesting as it features way too many things happening to make any of these plots feel connected. In addition to this kind of scattered approach, there's also the fact that the pacing is so slow it's nearly impossible to care about what's going on. As so many of these elements getting brought up make the film feel far more like a family drama with a bit of suspense thrown in with the mob connections, it's so light on the sightings of the spectral figures around her that they almost feel like an afterthought introduced simply to make it more marketable. Very little is explained in a way that connects everything and it tends to come off more like an extra setup to add even struggle to the family since they take up far more of the running time here than anything else going on. That becomes a big component of the rest of the film as the final big issue is the lack of threatening genre action. As there's barely anything here in the first part where the few shocking inserts of the spirit haunting her are so haphazardly inserted it could easily be taken out without upsetting anything and then almost ignored until midway through the film for a briefly written explanation that tries to retcon everything into a functioning explanation for the setup. It's done so lamely and without any kind of genuine genre thrills that hardly any kind of interaction with the spirit occurs so there are no kills or anything like that happening throughout here, rendering all these aspects enough to completely downgrade this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

I actually heard about this movie awhile back when it was about to be released, and I forgot to follow up on it. I remember taking an interest in it because of the cast. Well, my interest is no longer; I'll pass on this one. It seems as if this was so bad that they felt it was better to let the movie itself sit in the closet.

What is funny is that there are a bunch of low ratings on here, and then you have the one 10/10 rating that sticks out like a sore thumb. It's not hard to figure out that the person is connected to this production in some way; perhaps it's the director who used words like stellar performances, masterfully crafted, chilling horror, and well-layered story. This one really made me laugh-"a spine-chilling cinematic experience."😆 And then it comes in at a 3.0/10 rating. Unbelievable.