There’s a secret in the attic of an isolated New Orleans mansion, in a room where nobody’s been for generations. Sound familiar? Yup, it’s a suspense thriller standard, although “The Skeleton Key” manages to give us a halfway decent suspenseful ride before live-in nurse’s aide Caroline (Kate Hudson) finds a way to creak open the mysterious door. She does, after all, have a skeleton key.

Caroline’s taken the job that several previous aides have already quit in haste. Her employer is Violet Devereaux, an eccentric old woman (Gena Rowlands), whose husband, Ben (John Hurt), has suffered a stroke. Ben can neither speak nor move more than an occasional twitch. His eyes, however, speak volumes, and Caroline begins to sense an inordinate fear in the elderly man.

For those who enjoy a good old-fashioned suspense thriller, “The Skeleton Key” works nicely. There’s very little blood or violence, just a lot of sneaking around dark, dank corridors and a few things that go bump in the night. If there’s a flaw (and it’s a nitpick), it’s that Caroline’s scrutiny of the old house seems a bit rushed—as if the tension’s had time to barely simmer, not boil. And she’s one cool character, venturing into shadowed rooms filled with those things one normally wouldn’t find, even in the attic. Me? I’d have found a Motel 6 early on.

Caroline discovers that the house was once owned by a white banker whose two servants were black hoodoo conjurors—hoodoo being a magical offshoot of voodoo, a bona fide Caribbean religion. When the couple meet an unfortunate end at the banker’s drunken whim—well, let’s just say they may have left a little something behind in the old mansion.

But generations have passed and the new owners seemingly respect the home’s peculiarities. Then again, Violet is a few wicks shy of a candelabra herself; she’s retired all the mirrors to the attic and dotes on her ailing husband in a disturbingly intense way.

“The Skeleton Key’s” premise isn’t new—and anyone familiar with the genre may feel a touch disappointed in the plot’s familiarity. A slew of mostly cheesy satanic and occult films (“The Mephisto Waltz,” “Hellraiser”) covered the same concept in various guises. But now the culprit is hoodoo, although the Cajun magic reputedly works only if the victim believes in its power. The trouble is that Caroline’s from New Jersey, home of relatively few hoodoo spells, and only begrudgingly does she begin to sense the magic’s legitimacy.

I did find a hole in the plot’s last two minutes (ah, the eagle eye of a trained professional), but chances are you won’t notice it, or won’t care—and I can’t really sneak a hint without giving away the whole jambalaya.Suffice it to say that your enjoyment won’t live or die over pondering that tidbit (okay, it has to do with a milky elixir, or the absence thereof), and I can’t help but wonder how things might have changed had the story played out over another week or two. But the fat lady sings and it’s over, and for those who need a good old-fashioned shiver up the spine, “The Skeleton Key” should provide the appropriate chills.

In a nutshell: There’s voodoo magic at play in the desolate Louisiana mansion, and young nurse Caroline begins to believe it’s slowly killing her elderly charge. She intrepidly begins to help the old man, although Caroline may be as much a part of the problem as she is the solution.

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