The Lodge movie review: A cold and uneasy atmospheric horror
The Lodge, from the first scene where it lies candidly in its miniature form in what look like a child’s room, to the last scene where it stands tall and ominous in the coldness and remoteness of Massachusetts, forms the breeding ground for the horror that drives the intertwining of the stories of four estranged souls, Aiden and Mia, a son and daughter of a late mother who took her own life in the most gruesome way possible, Richard, their father, the psychologist who seems to not know how to handle the situation and thus ends putting his children through pain than relief and Grace, the woman who survived a cult mass suicide as a child and is now fit enough to marry Richard and become the stepmother of Aiden and Mia. They are all going through an internal struggle which seems to peek throughout the movie and however individualistic and disconnecting it is from one another; it is equally appending at the same time. They are all fighting their own demons almost unaware of the pain of the other, yet in their suffering somehow they are all together and the psychical reminder to that is the cold home they are made to live in shortly as a family.
Because of the unquestionable burdensome sadness that is surrounding each of them, there is a cold and awkward behaviour towards each other like when Grace introduces her for the first time to Aiden and Mia, there is not a single word spoken back, and when grace wears the red cap of their mother, it is snatched away from her. This not only introduces us to the grim layers that lie below this uncompleted family structure, it also kind of tries to tease us with the extent to which something can go wrong and something does go wrong but the anticipation of it all: it is felt at every step of the way. This creates an atmosphere of unease which is most probably what the story is trying to achieve because this is a kind of story that does not depend on jump scares or ghosts killing you in your dream, the horror lies in the living and not the dead, the things they are capable of and the extents to which they might go astray.
Along with the performances by each actor that is demanded of characters whose arcs provides the horror in such a psychological atmospheric movie, Thimos Bakatakis, with his low-temperature frames, close up and extreme close-up shots manages to add to the eerie apprehension of the movie. Through his lens we almost feel we are into the minds of the characters and the uncomfortable dynamics they have established with each other. There is not a single moment in the film which allows to have a sense of relaxation of some sort as it generally happens between two jump scares which this movie does provide but not in the most expected way.
Although this movie can be called a slow burn by horror fans who would love to be kept at the edge of their seats by something more gruesome that the terrifying dreams that a cult survivor would have after she is the only one of the 39 people that did not kill herself, the pace is never the main character here, it’s the details, the resemblance of the lodge to the miniature lodge in the Aiden and Mia’s home which they use for playing with the doll version of their dead mom, the presence of catholic iconography in the lodge like the haunting replica of Virgin annunciate, Grace’s dreams of her cult leader father, everything indicates to the turbulence that is going inside their minds that can come to the surface at any time and it does; pouring out from the screen to haunt us with the humanity that lies behind it all.
