Austrian screenwriting and directing duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala either have terror children or were terror children. They love staging a good the-children-will-be-the-death-of-us yarn, pivoting from a story about two young mischievous twins torturing their mother (who’s recently undergone facially reconstructive surgery and, consequently, her children now refuse to believe is actually their mother) in their celebrated German-language debut Goodnight Mommy to a tale of two young mischievous siblings torturing their soon-to-be stepmother in their English-language horror show The Lodge.
The snow-dusted dramatic horror film that debuted at last year’s Sundance Film Festival holds similar appeals and poses similar challenges. Those taken to Franz and Fiala’s slow-burn cerebral approach to genre storytelling will undoubtedly have their newest intervention lodged in their memory, while those who found the pacing of Goodnight Mommy too slow for their tastes are unlikely to be overnight converts. Their style as icy as the snow-white oblivion in which The Lodge is set, appealing to a grand and intentionally opaque sense of mystery that haunts both their characters and their audience.
The Lodge introduces us to its circumstances like a shot to the head. With a shot to the head. Laura (Alicia Silverstone), devastated that separated husband Richard (Richard Armitage) wants to finalize their divorce so he can marry his new, younger girlfriend, points a revolver in her mouth and pulls the trigger. Six months pass and, to the surprise of no one, surviving children Aidan (Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Jia McHugh) have no interest in developing a relationship with their would-be-stepmom Grace (Riley Keough). Used to having to prevail in difficult circumstances, Grace takes up the challenge of spending a few days alone with the kids in the family’s lakeside cabin in the should-be-cheery days leading up to Christmas. The interaction doesn’t go well.
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Holiday cheer in short supply, a war of attrition begins. Shut out, ignored, and left to fill her time in frostbit solitude, Grace cannot get Aidan and Mia to warm up to her, despite promises of free-range junk food and staying up late to watch R-rated movies. After a night of The Thing and popcorn, the three awake to find everything they need to get along in the middle of nowhere gone. Winter coats, all the food in the pantry, electricity, cell phone charge. Grace’s dog. All gone. Even the backup generator is down. Grace suspects that her soon-to-be step-kids are messing with her but fears something far worse might be at play: a vengeful God punishing her for her role in the family’s dissolution.
Like with Goodnight Mommy, the script from Fiala, Franz and co-writer Sergio Casci plays up the ambiguity of their situation, leaving us to question whether the forces at play are indeed supernatural, if Grace is just totally losing it, or if the kids are up to some next-level naughtiness. Adding to the misery and trauma of it all is Grace’s childhood entanglement with an extremist Christian suicide cult which, taken with her driving suspicion that they’re facing some form of Biblical test, drives her to the brand of cabin fever madness reserved especially for cinematic snow-sacked lodges. The idea of religion being used to poison and kill isn’t particularly subtle but, like The Sacrament before it, makes for the perfect backdrop for a horror film.
Though Keough doesn’t appear until late in the first act, she dominates the picture with her thoroughly troubled performance, measuring in the subtle insecurities of the character with the deep-seated trauma that reveals itself in moments of doubt and desperation. I’ve long said that horror is one of the best stages for female performances to pop through and Keough quietly offers up career-best work as the distraught and melancholic Grace. Her turn is brittle and tragic, lending the horror film legitimate depth of feeling and a sour depiction of the horrifying tricks humanity plays on the weakest and most vulnerable of their flock. Though it’s unfair to say that everyone in The Lodge gets what they deserve, in some cases, you certainly do reap what you sow.
CONCLUSION: Led by a strikingly gloomy performance from Riley Keough, ‘The Lodge’ uses the power of psychological warfare and brutal natural elements to spook up a dark cabin fever horror story that refuses to let up.
B+
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By: Matt Oakes
Started blogging about film in college when the university paper wouldn’t have him. Dislikes your consensus film Twitter favorites. Devotee of horror movies that make him die a little inside. Catches films at festivals when he can. Proud SFCS and OFCS member and Tomatometer-approved critic. Editor-in-chief of Silver Screen Riot.
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