Plot: Caroline (Kate Hudson) is a twenty-five-year-old hospice worker who cares for the ailing and the elderly, a job chosen to atone for ignoring her own dying father in the past, when she was a rock and roll manager. After her latest charge passes away, Caroline takes a job in Louisiana, caring for Ben (Sir John Hurt), a stroke victim who is bedridden and cannot speak. But Caroline becomes suspicious of the house, and Ben's cold wife, Violet (Gena Rowlands), only adds to the creepy atmosphere. After acquiring a skeleton key, Caroline makes her way into a secret room in the attic where she discovers hair, blood, bones, spells, and other instruments for practicing hoodoo. Violet says she has never been in the secret room, but that the items probably belonged to the original owners' two houseworkers, who practiced black magic and were lynched as a result. Noting that Ben had his stroke in the attic after entering the room, Caroline is determined to unlock the secrets of the house, and rescue Ben from the horrors that hold him captive within.
Alternative Plot: Caroline Ellis (Kate Hudson), a good-natured nurse living in New Orleans, quits her job at a hospice to work for Violet Devereaux (Gena Rowlands), an elderly woman whose husband, Ben (John Hurt), is in poor health following a stroke. When Caroline begins to explore the couple's rundown Bayou mansion, she discovers strange artifacts and learns the house has a mysterious past. As she continues to investigate, she realizes that Violet is keeping a sinister secret about the cause of Ben's illness.
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