From the outset, The Lodge is a profoundly unsettling cinematic experience, its themes of loss, anger, faith and manipulation crawling under your skin through its icy blast of psychological horror.
In 2014, writers/directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz brought us one of the finest horror films of the past decade: Goodnight Mommy. Then in 2019, they teamed up with screenwriter Sergio Casci, once again embracing the psychological horror of a family in crisis. However, The Lodge suffered a substantial delay in reaching screens following its festival run, a delay that COVID-19 further impacted. As a result, many have still not seen this horror gem.
The Lodge wraps you in its feeling of quiet discomfort from the outset. Slowly building a sense of tension and foreboding. This is not a movie of quick shocks and gore. The Lodge is far more interested in the cold reaches of psychological horror, with Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz once more exploring themes of trust, secrets, lies, control and subverted innocence.
The Lodge opens in a familiar domestic setting with Richard (Richard Armitage), having left his wife, Laura (Alicia Silverstone), for his new girlfriend, Grace (Riley Keough). The family is broken in two, with daughter Mia (Lia McHugh) and teenage son Aiden (Jaeden Martell) caught in the middle of the parental turmoil. Both children are vehemently opposed to their father’s new girlfriend, confused at how their dad could have fallen for a woman who was once part of a religious cult. They distrust Grace, hoping to see their father reunite with their mother rather than be permanently separated.
However, on the unexpected and shocking death of their mother, the children’s hopes and dreams are shattered into a million pieces, as their father encourages them to spend more time with Grace. For Richard, the traditional Christmas break at the family’s secluded lodge in the mountains is a perfect opportunity to thaw the ice between Mia, Aiden, and their soon-to-be stepmother.
Of course, while Grace understands the need for bonding, her nerves are rattled as she faces two days alone with the children in the cabin while Richard finishes work in the city in the lead-up to Christmas, before driving to join them. Grace’s nerves are further heightened as the snow deepens around the lodge, and a sense of isolation grows, with little communication from the secretive Aiden and Mia, as the past pain, fear, and guilt she locked away slowly worms its way free.
As the lodge becomes further separated from the outside world, it becomes a catacomb for the ghosts of the past and the anger of the present, the joy of Christmas replaced by a nightmare of no escape. Are Mia, Aiden and Grace beginning to succumb to cabin fever? Or are there other deadly and manipulative forces at play?
The Lodge uses its cold, quiet, and isolated landscape to full effect to build a sense of claustrophobia, with the warming comfort of the wooden hunting lodge, and the glow of its fire clashing with the stark white and icy blue surrounding Grace, Aiden and Mia. Here, Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz, and cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis embrace a sense of isolation akin to that of Misery and The Shining, as the outside world disappears in a blizzard of snow and a blanket of ice.
Performances perfectly enhance this sense of unease and trepidation, as the doe-eyed innocence of both Mia and Aiden conceals the deep pain of losing their mother and the anger toward the usurper who, they believe, led to their family’s destruction. Aiden’s inner thoughts and emotions are kept firmly hidden, his cold relationship to everything but his younger sister brilliantly portrayed by Jaeden Martell, while Riley Keough’s Grace attempts to conceal her own vulnerability and fear, as events spiral out of her control.
From the outset, The Lodge is a profoundly unsettling cinematic experience, its themes of loss, anger, faith and manipulation crawling under your skin through its icy blast of psychological horror. Eerie and full of suffocating anxiety, The Lodge is a horror that grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let go until its truly horrific conclusion comes into view.
The Lodge is available to rent or buy on selected platforms.
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