A Film Fit For a Landfill (Not a Fancy One)

Don’t fall for the movie’s effective trailer or positive reviews. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s 2019 film, The Lodge, is a disappointing 108 minutes. It’s not one of the “scariest movies of all time” or a “reinvention of the genre.” If you have any unpleasant chores to complete in under two hours, you’re better off finishing them than attempting to watch one of the dumbest horror/psychological movies ever created.

I like horror films set in frigid environments, and I’m a big fan of The Thing (all three versions), The Shining, and 30 Days of Night. Like stormy nights, frozen landscapes seem to work well in horror movies.

The weather isolates the protagonists and makes it more challenging to fight off the villain or monster. Also, most horror directors undoubtedly appreciate the way that movie blood appears on snow.

During a warmer season, a trail of blood leading to a decapitated noggin would not be as noticeable as it would during a snowy winter. The Lodge fails to take advantage of the snow/blood combination and relies on indoor settings to stage its violent acts.

However, because of the film’s writing (worthy of an adolescent), it fails to deliver chilling moments. Even in the middle of a blizzard, the characters’ dire situation becomes boring rather than suspenseful.

The film’s plot involves a father, son, and daughter who spend their Christmas vacation at a snowy lodge in the woods with the father’s psychotic girlfriend. They’re still grieving the loss of their mother.

In the opening of the film, their Mom shoots herself in the head after she finds out her husband is divorcing her and planning on marrying one of the Manson women.

It sounds just like a classic Christmas movie. Doesn’t it? Suicide, cult members, strange children, and moronic filmmaking bring out the holiday spirit.

The Lodge is streaming on Hulu, but you’re better off watching the two-part Brady Bunch episode when the family goes to Hawaii. Greg’s struggle with a tiny wave that nearly kills him is riveting television.

Death Row Prisoners: Your Next Film Will Be The Lodge. Enjoy!

The kids’ father, played by Richard Armitage, is in the race for the worst parent of the year award. He casually decides to tell his wife (Alicia Silverstone) that he needs a divorce when he picks up the kids at her house.

Richard (doing a sloppy Michael Fassbender impersonation) wants to marry Grace (Riley Keough). Grace was one of the subjects of his last books and was the only survivor of a fundamentalist suicide cult.

When Richard’s children search the web for details about their future stepmom, they find a disturbing film depicting several dead bodies with their mouths taped shut and the word “SIN” written on the tape.

They type her name in a search engine, and an instant snuff film appears. Children live in a great age of technology, and I’m jealous that I didn’t have such a graphic resource at my disposal when I was a kid.

The camera pans around to all of the dead cult members in sleeping bags and focuses on a mirror that shows Grace operating the camera.

Why would an author begin dating a mass murderer while he’s researching a book? And how did Grace escape a life prison sentence or a room at an asylum?

These questions are never answered, but thankfully, you won’t notice because The Lodge only becomes more ridiculous and amateurish as the film progresses.

Six months after his wife’s suicide, Richard has a great idea.

He decides to take Grace and his two children to a secluded cabin in the woods. Like several other haunted house or secluded cabin movies, Richard gets called away for a vital work issue and must leave Grace alone with his children.

Before he leaves, he decides to create some foreshadowing for the film.  

In one of the most idiotic scenes of the movie, Richard gives Grace a shooting lesson with his old revolver. Of course, she doesn’t need his lessons. She shoots a tree repeatedly like a western sharpshooter and empties the pistol.

Providing gun lessons to a former cult member who looks like she hasn’t slept in a year is an excellent plan. Does Richard secretly hate his children?

Riley, Will You Speak Up, Please?

Compared to the performances in horror films from the ’80s, the acting in The Lodge isn’t awful. At least the kids aren’t bad. Riley Keough’s performance as Grace isn’t too convincing. She looks ragged, has rings under her eyes, and barely speaks above a whisper throughout the film.

Indeed, she appears to be a cultist who shouldn’t be babysitting your kids, but her muted speech and painkiller demeanor are more stylish than scary.

She attempts to act like a disturbed person but only comes off as someone who failed at loving up to the goth kids in high school. When Grace begins to hallucinate after losing her medication, the movie starts to show some signs of life.

All of her food, clothes, meds, and loving dog disappear overnight, and the children act stunned when they’re accused of the crime. To make things more unpleasant, the generator stops working, and the power goes out.

The kids have to endure a frigid cabin during a blizzard with an increasingly unhinged mass murderer, but it’s hard to feel sorry for them.

When Grace finds a picture of the kids with the words “In Loving Memory of” buried in the snow, the teenager (Aidan, played by Jaeden Martell) suggests to Grace that all of them are dead.

Aidan pretends to hang himself to scare Grace, but she’s unconvinced that they’re in limbo between heaven and hell until she finds her frozen dog. The dog’s death is the breaking point for Grace, and I guess it was for me, too.

The dog was the only likable part of the movie. I can handle poorly written scripts and bad acting, but I struggled to make it through a cinematic disaster that included a dead dog scene. The kids supposedly didn’t intend to release the dog into the frozen landscape.

However, it’s challenging to believe the kids after they’ve spent their time tormenting a psychopath.

Sympathy can be a compelling emotion in a horror movie. When you identify with a victim, their death affects you, but when every character (except the dog) is worthless, their demise isn’t unpleasant. It’s welcome.