The Lodge – first look review

Even though it con­tains very lit­tle gore and few jump scares, The Lodge is a film many view­ers will like­ly watch through their fin­gers. It’s tes­ta­ment to the sense of dread and anx­i­ety that direc­tors Veroni­ka Franz and Sev­erin Fiala gen­er­ate through­out – there’s bare­ly a moment of ease in the per­fect­ly paced 100-minute run­time. The ten­sion starts to build in a famil­iar domes­tic set­ting before shift­ing to some­thing much more sinister.

Richard (Richard Armitage) has left his wife Lau­ra (Ali­cia Sil­ver­stone) for new girl­friend Grace (Riley Keough), break­ing up his fam­i­ly. Lau­ra is under­stand­ably dev­as­tat­ed, and their two devot­ed chil­dren (Jae­den Lieber­her and Lia McHugh) are heart­bro­ken at what this rejec­tion has done to her. As a result, they’re filled with resent­ment towards Grace and are upset when their father announces plans to spend Christ­mas togeth­er at the family’s lake­side lodge.

Now alone and seclud­ed in the moun­tains in deep win­ter, the trio start to expe­ri­ence unex­plained and increas­ing­ly ter­ri­fy­ing phe­nom­e­nons as Grace’s trau­mat­ic past and the reli­gion she aban­doned come back to haunt and pun­ish her. With each rev­e­la­tion comes increased hor­ror and added emo­tion­al depth.

Keough has been a wel­come pres­ence in indie cin­e­ma for sev­er­al years now. She was mag­nif­i­cent­ly brazen in 2016’s Amer­i­can Hon­ey and heart­break­ing in the del­i­cate roman­tic dra­ma Lovesong. Yet she hasn’t been giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to prove her­self in a lead role. This per­for­mance – eas­i­ly her most chal­leng­ing to date – has the poten­tial to change that.

The Lodge is tru­ly her film, and she gives it her all, emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. It’s fas­ci­nat­ing to wit­ness Keogh as she unrav­els and reverts from a ratio­nal state to one of dis­il­lu­sion­ment and crazed belief. Most impres­sive­ly she always man­ages to retain our empa­thy, even when she’s ter­ri­fy­ing us at the same time.

Along with Keough, the film’s strongest asset is the bleak, almost hos­tile atmos­phere it achieves. Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Thimios Bakatakis cer­tain­ly plays his part, adding cool tones, sharp focus and unnerv­ing slow pans. The crisp, intense white­ness of the snowy land­scape is often con­trast­ed with the dark­ness of the lodge itself.

With the help of pro­duc­tion design­er Syl­vain Lemaitre, Bakatakis’ lens trans­forms what ini­tial­ly appears to be a banal, cosy fam­i­ly get­away into a night­mare. This film will unset­tle you in the moment and leave you think­ing about the reper­cus­sions of grief, vio­lence, blind faith and manip­u­la­tion long after the cred­its roll.