Caroline settles into the mansion and notices that all the mirrors in the house have been removed, seemingly recently. The strange proprietors have hung animal bones and other talismanic items around the place. On her way there to move in, Caroline stops by a rural gas station and notices odd details around the rundown facility, including a line of red dust that has been placed across the threshold of the building. Perhaps because she finds Ben's condition compelling, Caroline accepts and moves into the mansion. His wife, Violet Devereaux (Gena Rowlands), seems to immediately dislike and distrust Caroline, but Luke smooths it over and encourages Caroline to take the position. She will be caring for Ben Devereaux (John Hurt), who seems to have suffered some kind of stroke. Caroline visits the secluded New Orleans home, which is an old mansion near a bayou swamp, and meets her potential employers. A lawyer named Luke (Peter Saarsgard) fields the phone call from Caroline, and he sets up an interview with the family. Caroline quits her job at the hospice and follows up on a lead for a position as a personal care assistant. The last straw comes when Caroline finds boxes of items belonging to other recently deceased patients, all being stored in a dumpster, thrown out as garbage. Caroline finds herself confronted by the same type of avoidance that she gave her own father when a patient dies and nobody from his family is even interested in picking up his belongings. Caroline feels guilty about this and has devoted herself to becoming a person who makes a difference. She is despondent about the death of her own father, who died alone because she was unaware of his situation and was living life on the road with a traveling rock band. TickleberryĬaroline (Kate Hudson) is a young hospice worker who is disillusioned by the reality of this type of work. 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. 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.

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. Caroline becomes suspicious of the house, and Ben's cold wife Violet (Gena Rowlands) only adds to the creepy atmosphere. After her latest charge passes away, Caroline takes a job in Louisiana caring for stroke victim Ben (Sir John Hurt), who is bedfast and can't speak. Caroline (Kate Hudson) is a 25-year-old hospice worker who cares for the ailing and the elderly, a job she chose to atone for ignoring her own dying father when she was a rock'n'roll manager.

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