Skeletons in the Closet is a Shudder original that asks which is scarier: a jumpscare-happy ghost or American health insurance? Unfortunately, both are meant to scare but only one of them felt organic to the story.

The flick stars Terrence Howard as the father of a little girl with movie cancer. While his wife is at home being jumpscared by a bored ghost, he naturally goes to a psychic who gives him bad news. Now it’s a casual saunter against time to save his child.

How they roped Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr. and a creepy Udo Kier (so: Udo Kier) and his snake into this film, I have no idea. It’s so bargain basement that I can only assume the idea of making a film about health insurance was at the top of their minds. Surely the laughable fire effects, the snake, the gangsters, the boring backstory, and the Goosebumps villain that shows up randomly at the end weren’t priority.

Yeah, this flick kind of feels like a health care drama that someone panicked over and decided to add ghosts. And psychics. And Udo Kier with a snake. It’s probably pretty evident by my dire seriousness that this film is not scary… unless you get scared by your shadow jump-scaring you. BOO! Did it work?

Clue #1 we’re dealing with low effort filmmaking… the psychic shop is named Psychic Eye’s… and I’m not sure what those eyes are supposed to be possessing… or maybe they didn’t know apostrophe S denotes ownership. Or maybe they are playing 3D Chess and the apostrophe is a hint about a demonic possession plot? I have doubts.

The only positive I can say is the Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr do a good job acting this pablum. Oh, and Udo Kier does a good job at petting snakes (and that’s just a bonus).

This is a very bad, very incompetent horror movie and a subpar healthcare thriller. Good actors can’t save codswallop.

Score: 58