A soon-to-be stepmom is snowed in with her fiancé’s two children at a remote holiday village. Just as relations begin to thaw between the trio, some strange and frightening events take place.
The filmmaking duo behind the latest psychological horror flick “The Lodge” — Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz — announced their arrival in 2014 with the terrifying thriller “Goodnight Mommy.” Their follow-up doesn’t quite live up to the lofty expectations that tremendous debut set up, yet stands on its own as a feverish descent into madness, a-la Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” or “Midsommar.” The former film especially seems to have been a major influence on Fiala and Franz — I could write a scene-by-scene comparison about both films’ usage of monochrome greys, and their predominant motifs — though “The Lodge” is more heavily infused with religious paranoia. Disregard some of its inconsistencies and bravely dive in, but don’t expect a Blumhouse-style freak-fest — this one’s a slow-burner, with a great payoff.
Similarly to “Hereditary,” the film starts with a jarring, horrifically tragic event (involving Alicia Silverstone and a gun) that sets in motion its gloomy plot. The religiously-raised Aidan (Jaeden Martell) and his sister Mia (Lia McHugh) are dropped off at the titular, remote, wintery lodge by their somewhat-ignorant father Richard (Richard Armitage). To make matters worse, they have to stay there with his new girlfriend, Grace (Riley Keough), who recently escaped from an extremist evangelical death cult (good fathering there, am I right?). Resentments rise, and a blizzard traps them inside. To make matters worse, they wake up one morning to realize all of their possessions have gone missing… Are they dead, trapped in purgatory? Grace begins to unravel, leading to a psychotic second half that is as uncompromisingly bleak as it’s methodical.
The filmmakers skillfully switch perspectives, luring us into their organized dementia. One minute we’re with the kids, vilifying Grace; the next — we’re seeing them from her perspective, and it’s not a pleasant one. A lot will hinge on whether you buy into the film’s twist that arrives at about the halfway point. I won’t divulge it here, but I assume the filmmakers didn’t intend for it to be too literal — I see it more as a trigger for Grace to go off the rails, something that was deliberate but miscalculated, not meant to be taken to such an extreme. Grace’s past catches up to her, her sins and grievances resurface, and, well, it may be too late.
Fiala and Franz do a lot with a limited setting and three actors. The kids — Martell and McHugh — are riveting, going to places most adult performers would fear to tread. I’ve been a fan of Riley Keough since TV’s “The Girlfriend Experience” — there’s just something “je ne sais quoi” about the actress, a tittering on the brink of madness in her soulful eyes that’s kept me captivated. She unleashes it all here, folks. Richard Armitage fares worse in the “dumb dad” role — I mean really, spoiler alert, but he deserves what’s coming to him, the fucker.
I loved the references to John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” I loved the film’s reliance on psychological terror and character development as opposed to cheap shock tactics (although it’s not beyond resorting to a few of those here and then, too). Like “Hereditary” before it, the film is just a tad too pretentious, too shrill and a bit unfinished to truly qualify as an instant classic. That said, I cannot wait to see what the filmmakers have in store for us next.
In Theaters Friday, February 7th
