Movie Review: "The Lodge" (2020)

There’s nothing more refreshing, as both a professional reviewer and a horror fan, than wading back into the shark-infested deep end of the pool with the kind of movies that most people refer to as “love it or hate it”. It makes the job that much easier, really. Movies like this give you a definitive position that makes it easier to cross-examine the positions of everyone else. Hell, I almost couldn’t get my review started because I was lost in reading everyone else’s take on it.

Aidan (Jaden Lieberher; It, It: Chapter Two) and his sister, Mia (Lia McHugh; Along Came the Devil) are having a hard time handling the divorce of their parents…almost as hard a time as their mother (Alicia Silverstone; Clueless) is. Their father (Richard Armitage; The Hobbit series) isn’t making things any easier by forcing them into bonding with his new girlfriend and the women he left their mother for- Grace (Riley Keough; It Comes at Night), the mentally unbalanced sole survivor of a religious cult. His brilliant idea for seasoning this steaming pot of uncomfortable what the fuck is to put everyone together in the family lodge at Christmas time and then take off for a couple of days. Then he takes off to go back to work in the city for a couple of days and leaves the kids with the replacement Mom. Great idea.

There’s the initial sticking point: the bad parenting on display in The Lodge is so grievous that it borders on the criminal. That’s not a deal breaker, per se, but there are certain people who will get turned off by that alone. It infuriated me a bit, and my clinical detachment is near legendary. Still, horror is a genre where bad decisions are par for the course and you simply have to suspend that titular disbelief/outrage and just roll with it.

You’ll really want to do that here, because The Lodge holds some nasty surprises that are visceral and deeply unsettling to watch. Also, it’s flat-out gorgeous. Seriously, the location and cinematographic use of it is a cold and desolate joy. Both The Shining and The Thing are clear influnces (they even watch the John Carpenter classic in one scene!). Another strong influence is Ari Aster’s Hereditary, and it’s the one that writer/directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz (Goodnight Mommy) were clearly showing some love to. There’s a heavy use of miniatures, solid tracking shots of heavy unease, and a fractured women trying to hold on. Some folks will say there’s some “apeing” going on, and they’re not entirely wrong.

Still, this one was definitely my cup of tea. The atmosphere is so stifling and tense that it’s nearly hard to breathe after a while, and the cast plays off that to perfection. It’s slow-moving, sure, but sometimes patience is required if you want to get to the center of that diseased and insane Tootsie Pop. There are a handful of jarring and shocking moments and the tension is quite high. If nothing else, it serves as a solid cautionary tale about the do’s and don’ts of handling those with severe trauma and mental damage (as well as what NOT to do as a parent).

I’ll put it more in layman’s terms: I’m kind of jaded and hard to affect where horror is concerned (I’m the textbook definition of desensitized), and I gasped a couple of times, teared up in empathy, and golf-clapped at the sheer suddenness of certain scenes. Also, I’m kind of bonkers for The King of Rock and Roll’s granddaughter. She’s utterly stunning, and yet they make her look absolutely mortal here and she sells the damage like an old pro. Bravo!

In addition, I’ll put it this way: my teen daughter is going into the field of child psychology (and she’s very passionate about it). She had a lot to say about The Lodge when all was said and done. The phrase “a lot” doesn’t do it justice. This movie provoked a response.

I’m not trying to sell you, but I am trying to match the vitriol some folks have had for The Lodge. Like I said- love it or hate it. Your call.