Movie Review: ‘The chilling ‘Lodge’ burns slow

By Catherine Engstrom-Hadley
Staff Writer

Grade: B

See it if: You liked “Goodnight Mommy” and love a minimalist cabin

Skip it if: A slow burn isn’t for you

In “The Lodge,” two children still reeling from the tragic loss of their mother and their parents’ divorce are taken to celebrate Christmas with their new stepmother at her isolated cabin. The kids, Aiden (Jaden Martell from “IT”) and Mia (Lia McHugh), are hostile towards their dad’s new girlfriend Grace (Riley Keough) after they discover her father was the leader of a suicide cult. When the kids’ dad (Richard Armitage) is called back home for a business trip, he leaves the three to bond without him, and strange things start happening in the cabin. The children begin to wonder if Grace’s past has come back to haunt them all.

“The Lodge” explores the darker sides of parenthood and the crushing weight of new responsibility that can come with it. What is it with parents in horror movies tossing all common sense out the window? No one is a perfect parent, but if you’re thinking of leaving your two kids stranded on a frozen river with your disturbed girlfriend, kindly reconsider.

Created by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, who brought us the deeply disturbing “Goodnight Mommy,” “The Lodge” doesn’t fully live up to its predecessor, but it does come close. The movie is stylish, with beautiful shots of the moody little cabin in the snow. Keough delivers an excellent performance, making it hard to root against her character—even though the clues tell us we probably should.

Fiala and Franz spent a long time establishing the mood of the cabin, and by doing so, burned up precious minutes that could have been used to flesh out some of the characters in the story. The film’s problem was that it tried to cover too much ground—religion, trauma, grief and new motherhood, all rolled into an hour-and-48-minute film. The many themes never quite mesh together in a cohesive way. Still, “The Lodge” is a worthwhile watch—even if it did bite off more than it could chew.