Keyhole isn’t your typical horror movie. It goes headfirst into the unsettling world of a haunted house but with a unique twist. We meet Ulysses Pick, a gangster shrouded in amnesia, played by Jason Patric.
During a fierce storm, Ulysses leads his gang on a bizarre mission – to reclaim his childhood home and, more importantly, save his deceased wife, Hyacinth (played by Isabella Rossellini).
The house itself is a character, a sprawling mansion brimming with a chilling atmosphere. It’s not just the creaking floorboards or flickering lights that send shivers down your spine.
This house is a prison for restless spirits, each a chilling reminder of past tragedies. Ulysses, struggling to remember his own past, encounters these ghosts with the help of Denny (played by Brooke Palsson), a deceased girl tethered to the house.
Unlike the typical sheet-wearing apparitions used for jump scares, Keyhole’s ghosts are terrifying in their own strange way. They don’t actively try to harm the living, but their very existence paints a horrifying picture of the house’s dark history.
One ghost endlessly hammers nails into the wall with bloodcurdling screams, another fixates on a bizarre dice game with unsettling connotations. These unsettling behaviors are a haunting reflection of their past lives and the tragedies that bind them to the house.
The true horror of Keyhole lies not in jump scares, but in the symbolism woven into the narrative. The ghosts represent the unforgivable acts and traumas that have stained the house’s history. Their inability to escape reflects the characters’ struggle to outrun their past mistakes.
As Ulysses pieces together his forgotten memories with Denny’s aid, a web of family dysfunction unfolds. We learn about the tragic deaths of Ulysses’ children, all seemingly caused by the neglectful actions of him and the other adults in the house. The ghosts themselves are filled with a deep sense of sorrow, a feeling that intensifies as Ulysses confronts the events that brought him back to this haunted mansion.
A Combination of Genres: A Fusion of Gangster Flick and Ghost Story
Keyhole masterfully blends genres, attracting viewers with a unique combination of gangster drama and a hauntingly introspective ghost story. This unexpected fusion keeps the audience hooked, constantly defying expectations with its unsettling strangeness.
The plot itself unfolds in a dreamlike manner, adding to the film’s unsettling atmosphere. Reality seems to shift and morph, leaving the viewer constantly off-balance until the very end. This creates a rich combination of horror and drama, a movie so confusing yet attractive that it begs for multiple viewings to fully grasp its disturbing brilliance.
If you’re looking for a horror movie that breaks the mold, one that chills you with its offbeat strangeness rather than jump scares, then Keyhole is a must-watch. This film is available to stream on Tubi in the U.S.
