The Lodge: An Atmospheric Chiller
Over a year since it first premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival where it was heralded as “the next great horror film", The Lodge is finally here to deliver icy, atmospheric chills to the general populace. Flying under the Hammer Films banner and helmed by the acclaimed Austrian writer/directors of 2015’s Goodnight Mommy, Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz (who co-wrote the script alongside Sergio Casci) have once again cooked up a demented slow-burn thriller with a mysterious center that confirms that the pair definitely have a mother complex.
A soon-to-be stepmom, Grace (Riley Keough), is snowed in with her fiancé’s two children, Aidan (IT's Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Lia McHugh), at a remote winter cabin over the holidays. Just as relations begin to thaw between the trio, some strange and frightening events take place.
The Lodge combines the evil stepmother trope (a la Brothers Grimm) with the snowy isolation of The Shining, the traumatic grief of Hereditary, and the chilling mystery of The Others to deliver a slow, atmospheric psychological thriller that gets in your head more than it makes you jump out of your seat. That said, labeling it “the next great horror film” is a bit of an overstatement — labeling it the year’s first good horror film would be more appropriate; it calls it what it is, while acknowledging that there’s room to grow, too. There’s no disputing that it’s well made, and its three central performances (namely Riley Keough’s) are very effective; however, The Lodge’s psychological warfare and icy ebbs and flows won’t work on just anyone.
Similar to Goodnight Mommy, the film centers around young siblings at odds with parental figures, and Franz & Fiala use this focal point to derive all of its mystery, suspense, and tension. It shares a lot more in common with Giallo than it does full-on horror, in the sense that the story is ripe with red herrings and vaguely whodunit by design (not in terms of a killer but more so the cause behind the film’s strange happening). Its setup is probably its biggest hurdle, and it really requires you to suspend your disbelief to buy into the rest of the story. If you don’t stop to question the story’s motivation (which may be a roadblock to many), you’ll have a higher likelihood of being taken on a ride that successfully gets under your skin. Due to its twisty and winding unfolding, there will likely be points where it will have you onboard and others where it loses you. You may find yourself satisfied with its initial direction, only to be let down by its reveal or twist (or you could be the exact inverse).
Its mysterious center can be deduced to three distinct possibilities, and Franz & Fiala cleverly play upon each to toy with the viewer’s head and keep them guessing. We were pretty pleased with The Lodge’s twists and turns, and while they’re pretty well masked, the downside is that their reveal can be easily spotted by the patience viewer because they’re sometimes televised too early. So, in some instances — namely the big one at the end — don’t often hit with the most resonate impact. The story successfully finds its way into unexpected territory though, and it went a bit further and dove a bit deeper than we could’ve anticipated. Aside from its refreshing inversion of the evil stepmother trope, its biggest win — and also its biggest scare — is in how it explores the possibility of us manufacturing our own designer hell, suggesting that the wounds of trauma never fully heal.
Franz & Fiala have strong command over every frame. They keep the camera moving at a persistently unsettling creep, which, interestingly, gives the moments of stillness an eerie feeling of dread. Stylistically, Franz & Fiala use a dollhouse miniature and dollhouse framing (achieved with a wide lens that always keeps a locations ceiling visibible in the frame) to give the film a fatalist feel, which will draw a lot of similarities to Ari Aster’s Hereditary; however, the films couldn’t be any different at the end of the day. Franz & Fiala use the dollhouse motif to play right into their mind games with the viewer, and its aesthetic, while somewhat derivative, successfully enhances The Lodge’s moody atmospherics.
The performances are the glue that hold everything together. They make the unbelievable or questionable feel more palpable and real, making it easier for a viewer to buy into the film’s events. Ultimately, The Lodge is a film that asks better questions than it provides answers. For us, that’s OK, but to others, it may not be as accessible. While it doesn’t exactly stick its landing, its chilling atmospherics, skillful execution, and solid performances make it well worth a watch.
Recommendation: If you like unsettling mood pieces with demented twists, check in to The Lodge.
Rating: 4 red hats outta 5.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thought and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!