Review: The Lodge
Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the creative team behind 2015’s German thriller Goodnight Mommy, continue exploring the relationship between child and mother figure with The Lodge—a tense, claustrophobic thriller about Aiden and Mia (Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh, respectively), siblings whose father, Richard (Richard Armitage), shoehorns them into spending Christmas alone with Grace, their hopeful stepmother-to-be.
Moody and dripping with atmosphere, The Lodge hinges on a stellar performance by Riley Keough as Grace, who we first meet as a silhouette—the figure of a woman who shouldn’t be there—and then again as she slips out the back of Richard’s apartment. In fact, we don’t get to see Grace’s face in the flesh until they are on their way to the titular lodge. Instead, she is a specter that hovers over the family, her presence unwanted yet inevitable—inescapable. Keough plays the role expertly: she is both sympathetic to the children’s anger and apprehension while also showing frustration at her inability to connect with them. She is desperate to be a supportive part of their lives but unwilling to give them the space they need to become comfortable on their own terms.
Not to be outdone, Martell and McHugh turn in memorable performances of their own. The interactions between the kids and Keough (and perhaps more importantly, the non-interactions) really work to convey the boiling hostility Mia and Aiden have toward this unwelcome interloper. Early on, Mia eavesdrops on her father and Grace as they decide to postpone meeting the kids after a blowup by Aiden. The adults are seen only as shadows through frosted glass and after listening for a brief moment, Mia reacts by slamming the door shut. The direction shines here, as well: so much is said with a blank stare, a held hand, silence.
Silence, by the way, is not felt often. The sounds of the cabin are front and center, with every creaky floorboard or sliding drawer echoing throughout the bare cabin interior. Similarly, the score can at times feel heavy and suffocating, clawing to the foreground of the scenes. One scene in particular, however, uses this same technique to great effect—filling the frame with a blanket of sound and making it that much more tense and disturbing.
Of course, the other standout character in The Lodge is the lodge itself. Architecture in horror is its own can of worms, but it’s important enough here to risk cracking open. Spatially, the lodge finds itself right at home against locations like the Nostromo and Outpost 31. It’s dark, cold, filled with narrow corridors and tight corners. Shots are framed against prominent windows that, rather than opening the space, serve as a reminder at how cramped and isolated the characters are.
My only real issue with The Lodge is how it sticks the landing. It's not that I didn't like the reveal; it's one of those times where I sat thinking "Please don't let it be this—" followed by "Oh good, it’s that." It seems almost too simple for the tension leading up to the third act, and yet changing it may have required so much restructuring of the first two acts that it would have all fallen apart.
It feels like this film has masterpiece aspirations but just can't reach those heights, which I say as a compliment because there's a lot to love here that simply doesn't hit the next rung on the ladder. The seeds are planted for making strong statements on the long-term effects of trauma, brainwashing, and gaslighting; about the ability of religion to cause psychological damage; and, not the least of which, about motherhood and the forms it takes. Unfortunately, none of these themes gets driven home, and in some cases, those that are set up in the beginning are hardly explored at all. A lot feels like a lot was left on the table when it comes to The Lodge. With great performances, a tried and true horror setting, and some genuinely good startling moments, it’s just a little disappointing that it wasn’t able to vault itself into horror stardom.
Article Written by Ande Thomas
Ande loves the intersection of sci-fi and horror, where our understanding of the natural world clashes with our fear of the new and unknown. He writes about monsters and foreign horror and can also be found over on Letterboxd.
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