What happens when the only survivor of mass suicide, the twelve-year-old daughter of the leader of a separatist Catholic cult, grows to adulthood? Will she be able to acclimate back into polite society, or will she forever be haunted by her past? Do extreme emotional and environmental isolation, and lack of access to much-needed medicines, impact on the said cult victim-and if so, how? These are questions that I, for one, would never think to ask in this life or the next. Not so, the Austrian filmmaking duo of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.
The Lodge (2019) is the newest directorial entry from Franz and Fiala, best known for writing and directing their 2014 breakthrough horror film, the german-language Goodnight Mommy, which was chosen as Austria's entry for Best Foreign Film for the Academy Award the year it was released. Weird, perverse and sick, if admirably original, Goodnight Mommy explored the notion of what would transpire when twin boys are reunited with their mother after an extended medically-necessitated absence. After returning to her children sporting extensive facial bandages, a tv-presenter mother finds it is no easy task to convince her prepubescent boys that she is who she claims to be-a failure that results in harrowing and terrifying consequences. Goodnight Mommy is a film I ultimately cannot recommend. Possessed of strong performances and characterizations, and an intriguing plot (if saddled with a plodding, slow-but-steady way of storytelling) Goodnight Mommy led to the satisfying unraveling of a mystery (including an effective twist) but degenerates to torture-porn (that worst subgenre of horror) and an ending that is anything but elating (unconvincingly disguised as hopeful.)
For The Lodge, Franz and Fiala perform co-writing duties on this newest feature, along with fellow scribe Sergio Casci, best known as a writer for the thriller The Caller (2011) and various UK television series. Gaining this latest edition to their writing partnership doesn't improve the final quality of the writing of the plot, sadly. It also doesn't necessitate the need to remove a trigger warning that this latest production of Franz and Fiala should include: WARNING: this film will cause the viewer to close their eyes and ears on more than one occasion-and not hesitate to look at their watches in anticipation of the ending(!)
The train to depression-town begins when we are introduced to a middle-aged woman, mother Laura (played by Alica Silverstone of Clueless and Aerosmith music video fame-when did she get old enough to play this role? Time flies!) looking at herself in a mirror, crying. Turns out, she's getting ready to take her kids-Aiden, ably played by Jaeden Martell, and Mia, convincingly portrayed by Lia McHugh- to the brutalist-architecture home of her separated husband Richard (Richard Armitage, of all those "Hobbit" movies.) Laura, who is hoping for a reconciliation, is in for a shock when Richard unceremoniously announces to her that he wants a divorce so he can marry his new girlfriend Grace (Riley Keough, best known as Elvis' real-life granddaughter, and playing one of the wives in Mad Max: Fury Road, along with being a Steven Soderberg production regular.) Hearing about the impending nuptials goes over about as well as flatulence in a car to Grace, who is obviously in no mental state to hear bad news. It's not long before we as an audience get our first (disgustingly and offensively graphic) jump-scare, and Richard is reduced to single-fatherhood status prematurely.
It turns out that Richard had been researching Grace, the lone survivor of the Catholic separatist cult, for a book he wrote and fell in love with her (naturally.) Richard decides he has to force his two children to get along with Grace, so they can all get along happily ever after. This would be the first of many bad decisions for the character, who's decisions defy all logic and credibility throughout the movie. Seriously, this character is so exceedingly dull-witted, to me as a man, it's offensive. By the way, "offensive" is a great word to describe much about this movie, but I digress.
Richard decides that it'd be a great bonding opportunity to leave Grace, her dog, and his kids alone for an extended winter break in an old vacation lodge in the middle of nowhere, the nearest town miles away, thick snow blanketing the environs. After all, what could go wrong when cell phones don't work, heating is unreliable, no four-wheel drive vehicle-because the husband has it, the pond is covered with brittle ice, and they're all surrounded by thick woodlands? Oh, and did I mention, the house is overseen by a creepy saintly portraiture (the virgin Mary?!) that does NOT provide the desired calming effect for the denizens of the lodge. What could *possibly* go wrong if Grace doesn't have access to her pills that hold her mental scarring at the hands of the cult she survived at bay?
I decided to post my thoughts of this film in my religion, as opposed to a secular blog, because of the relationship this film has with the concept of religion. As you've no doubt guessed, it is profoundly negative when it comes to its attitude toward spirituality in general. The Catholic Separist cult that Grace survived is clearly modeled on the "Heavens Gate" cult from the late 90s, which I remember not-so-fondly from the late 90s. In that infamous incident, a bunch of cult members decided they needed to hitch a ride on an alien spacecraft riding in the shadow of a comet, and the only way to do that was to engage in a mass suicide. I can remember the photos of the bodies of the Heavens Gate cult members, covered in triangular purple cloths, with sneakered feet sticking out-just like this movie. I suppose that since there are references to Catholic hymns and prayers and crucifix and icons in this movie, and that's where the Catholic connection comes from-but even if it is a separatist organization, to me as a Catholic, it is no less offensive in the portrayal. On an unrelated note, I find it ironic that Reily Kough, an avowed Scientologist (a religion that has had its share of accusations of cultism) plays a former cult member in this film. I'm sure it's just a coincidence. But I digress again.
It's little wonder that The Lodge, like Goodnight Mommy before it, suffers from an unsatisfying, depressing ending-which might be the greatest offense of the film when all is said and done. We do get some pretty decent actor performances, and the setting is effectively haunting and creepy. It's not enough to make up for its faults in plot and characterization, or anti-theist message, in the end. The movie definitely owes a debt to horror movies featuring similar themes of isolation and madness-especially Stanley Kubrick's The Shining-but this film is not on the same plateau as that one.
