 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 2019 release the Lodge and I know a lot of people out There have said this is a bleak film. It is a bleak film, but what do you know? What's horror for? This is gonna be a spoiler review even though it just came out in 2019 I feel like it kind of warrants spoilers because then I can't really talk about a whole lot to be honest It would be a very short review if I didn't do spoilers Know that up front if you have interest in watching this film, which I think it is a good film It's not like my favorite film. I think it's well done. I think it's good. I'm gonna give this a good rating I would just say stop right here. Go watch it I watched it on Hulu when I'm recording this review It just hit Hulu kind of recently so it should be on there for a bit So let's get into it. The Lodge was directed by Severin Fiala and Veronica Franz Who did the film's goodnight mommy, which is actually streaming at the moment on the shutter streaming service And I think I saw that a long time ago. I'm not sure I can't remember and the field guide to evil which I have not seen and don't really know anything about It was written by Fiala Franz and a person by the name of Sergio Koski Which doesn't he doesn't really have any other like feature-length film writing credits on IMDb So I don't have that information to give The main star of this plane grace is Riley Keo. She's done films such as the runaways kiss of the damned Mad Max fury road it comes at night Which I do plan on watching because it's on Netflix and the house that Jack built which I think is also On Hulu at the moment and I do plan to see as well. So I'll see some more of her work Koski wrote the original script for this and then sold it to hammer films because this is a hammer film Who offered it to hammer then offered it to fiala and Franz to do and then they actually rewrote a bunch of it Including the ending of the film. I don't know. I what the actual Initial ending was supposed to be I didn't look that up because going into the film I do my research before seeing the film going into it I don't look for plot spoilers or anything like that So just know there was going to be a different ending initially and the ending that's in there is fiala and Franz's touch So if you've seen it, which I assume I mean, I hope you've seen it if you're going this far in this So Martell and McHugh who were the kids and yes, the boy was in the it films as bill The kid with the stutter So Martell and McHugh the kids were actually taken out before the production of it to do rock climbing and ice skating together because they actually Wanted them to fit to like form a friendly bond so they could actually on set kind of act more like brother and sister and actually have You know an actual relationship going into the filming and they figured that would really help them with their acting and You know kind of put that into their characters Now that said they also made sure that they kept Riley Keough from the kids so that they could Maintain that kind of distance on the set and with the characters They felt like that would really help the kids not, you know, trust her as much which obviously that's intended with Aidan and Mia as the kids in this to not trust grace. I mean the whole time basically so I thought I Mean maybe that worked it sounded like an interesting idea to do that The film was shot in Montreal in an actual lodge on a golf resort that happened to be closed for the winter I think the shooting location is really good. It looks really good It looks appropriately cold and frigid and isolated so they did a good job with scouting location They actually filmed the the movie in chronological order Which actually doesn't happen a whole lot and I'm assuming that that was done mainly to kind of help with the progression of The characters and the actors as they played those characters to kind of really feel as things start to slowly fall apart I feel like it's it's probably a lot harder if you kind of do something further on and then you go backwards When you're filming because it can kind of confuse the actors and they'll be like, okay What stage of like falling apart am I right now because I just played a section of being like totally undone And now we need to go back and I need to be like pretty with it I that's got to be hard to kind of make that switch So filming chronologically makes a lot of sense to get a better performance And like I said, that's not done a whole lot because usually they do it out of order to kind of maximize efficiency of the shooting time and budget as well So the cinematographer for this I think it's important to note because it's Thamios Bacotakis who worked with your ghost Lanthimos and I believe he was also the cinematographer for The killing of a sacred deer, which I did a review for recently on the channel. You can check that out I love that film so going into this and knowing that that was the cinematography Sorry cinematographer. I was fully expecting that this film would look very good from a cinematography standpoint And I was correct. It does look really good. The shots are always very interesting They have some cool angles the framing of it is always really nice And there's always a good amount to kind of look at within the shot. It's not just all about the characters It's about the shapes and the other things in the environment behind them and next to them and they It looks good Okay, so let's get in the actual film The opening shots going through the lodge with the eerie music seems to be very very bleak the lighting is extremely cold and It gives you just a very cold dead feeling And it's kind of like it made me feel like I feel like this is a foreshadowing of how the film is going to end It gave me that kind of feeling, you know, there are a lot of movies out there Well, not a lot, but there are a decent amount of movies out there that start with the ending basically They'll give you a little snippet in the very beginning of something that happens at the end of the film And then they start the film from the beginning of the story and they'll show you how do we get here? And that's kind of what that felt like to me when they showed it because why else would they be showing something like that? So I felt like okay. This is showing, you know that the lodge is kind of empty. It's very quiet It's very cold looking they show the gun as well I felt like that was clearly alluding to the fact that things are going to go very very badly and be very bleak So it sets you up pretty well for that But then, you know, it gets a little bit lighter for like a minute or so basically until Alicia Silverstone blows her brains out, which I saw that coming as soon as she was As soon as she sat down at her table and poured herself some wine I was like there's something off here and then as soon she started to like undo her necklace That's when I was like, oh, she's killing herself. She's about to kill herself But prior to that I saw her and I was like, oh cool. Alicia Silverstone She was just in the killing of a sacred deer, which I had watched a few weeks ago And I was like cool. It's great to see her getting more More roles and then I was like great. Hopefully this is a larger role than the killing of a sacred deer and Then it wasn't and then I was like, oh Okay, that didn't take long just like the killing of a sacred deer. She was in it barely at all So it was exciting to see her again to see her getting more work But I don't know do people not think she can carry a film is she's is she just like a small Part actress at this point. I hope not yeah So the family obviously because of the death of the mother the family is fractured immediately That's a very clear way to set it up saying this family is hurting This family is basically destroyed immediately and actually it's a terrible point to bring in another person So Richard the father the idea to then go away to get away and bring his new girlfriend who he was going to be marrying It's it's bad timing. He really should have had the ability to kind of step back and say Even if I do want to marry this person, I think this should be put on hold I shouldn't tell the kids about this at this point. They're obviously grieving the death of their mother Let alone say, hey, let's go have a getaway where we'll all go to the lodge You can spend time with this person that you don't like is obviously not your mother And then I'll leave on top of that and you'll just be left there with this person So from an actual like real-life standpoint, it doesn't make sense So there are kind of some plot holes in that sense, but it's a horror film So things have to go wrong, you know, you don't get to the the powerful message in the powerful film That is here without Richard being a terrible parent and being unrealistic with his choices. So Which are you know, they're very selfish Because obviously he's he seems very disconnected from what his kids are actually going through in order to be that Insensitive to to bring her along and everything and be like, oh and since your mother just died Let me tell you I'm gonna marry this woman bad timing Richard There's a reason that the the the short for Richard is dick So, yeah The cult video that Aidan and Mia end up watching reminds me a lot of the heavens gate cult And I think they probably took a lot of Inspiration from that because in the video I see a lot of things that are exactly what the heavens gate cult did because The positioning of the the bodies after the suicide the purple cloths that were on them They heavens gate did the exact same thing all that stuff. So I think they probably Stole a lot or borrowed a lot from heavens gate, which by By the way, if anyone's interested in knowing anything about cults and how they operate and stuff like that There are some really good podcasts out there about it one in particular. There is a heavens gate cult Podcast you can just look for it. It's I think it's just called heavens gate to be honest and it's very fascinating So just look for that on any pod catcher. I recommend it so Them watching it further entrenched is kind of their distrust and actually maybe some paranoia at that point and It's like a dual purpose at this point because obviously they're watching it because they're curious about Who grace is and they do a search on her and they find out, you know that she was involved in this cult the suicide cult and There's that aspect of it of them Just kind of learning which like I was saying kind of builds more distrust and potentially more paranoia About who she is and not only not only like do kids all not want a step parent in the first place And are they're distrustful of them in the first place But then you find out some sort of crazy thing from her past like that and it just deepens that but the other aspect of it is as you go through the film you realize that They take a lot of what they saw in that and a lot of the research they were doing and Incorporated into this plan that they had going on where they were messing with her to basically make her lose it and To try and scare her either scare her away or make her seem unstable enough that they could talk their father into getting rid of her So it's it's a dual purpose thing of them watching that You can see the discomfort on the kids faces in the car as grace gets in for the first time It felt like that was the very first time that they had met her I don't know if that's the case. I would assume that's not the case if he's already talking about Marrying her I assume they would have met her but it felt like it was the first time and Just the the acting of those kids in the car like you could definitely tell that they were very Very uncomfortable when she was getting into the car and they did a really good job of Showing that with their faces that was some great acting in my opinion and actually overall the acting in this is very excellent I will say the landscape around the kids in this film Kind of seems to be an actual representation of them kind of internally. They're cold. They're barren emotion Emotionally and it's truly a frigid winter that they are going through internally emotionally all that because you know You got to think about what they were Mentally and emotionally going through, you know, they lose their mother and then not long after that They have someone step in who they don't trust who's been involved in a suicide cult and who is basically trying to replace their mother Who they just lost who lost who they haven't even finished grieving for so it's a you know, it's a terrible situation When grace goes through the ice when they're out there kind of like you know When the doll falls into the little fishing hole and then the ice fishing hole and then grace goes in and she falls in They put a lot of focus on the doll that she got out of there And it kind of felt to me at that point that they were trying to make some sort of like voodoo doll Point about that but that ended up actually going away But it was just something I thought with the way they kind of like Focus the camera on the doll once it was pulled out after she went through the ice because it was like Felt like you know the doll went into the water and then she went into the water So it was like a voodoo doll or something. I don't know Mia showing grace the family video where she was like Oh, do you want to see what we got our dad for Christmas was like an intentional move to show that she's not welcome I mean it was obviously an intentional move to say watch this we still Have these memories we are giving these memories to our father to remind him of our mother at not you We don't have played a place for you here and it's got to be particularly hard for them because Through some of the dialogue early on you understand that that's kind of a tradition like a family tradition And the mom would go with them to this lodge So literally grace they're trying to insert grace or at least Richard is trying to insert grace into the mother's spot Which is just I mean really we can kind of say it was all his fault. I guess Just saying I love that they watch John Carpenter's the thing first of all I love the thing, but I think it ties into this film extremely well It's a movie about being isolated and not being able to trust anyone you're trapped with Sound familiar. That's the film. I mean grace doesn't end up trusting the kids The kids don't trust her either even though they know they're the ones kind of pulling the strings They still don't trust her and then they get to an even deeper moment of not trusting her when they realize that Even after they come clean about what they were doing They can't stop what they put into motion at they messed up. They messed up big time With all the nightmares that grace ends up having in this. It's obvious that she has severe PTSD From being in that cult. That's a pretty common thing actually that is a thing people were in cults Like they have to do a lot of work to become a I don't want to say normal person But become comfortable living in in our, you know normalized current society They do a they do a good job of creating such a murky situation that you kind of don't know is grace losing it Or are these kids just pulling all the strings and she's not able to figure that out? And You I mean they do a good job of kind of like stringing it out So for a a good segment of the film I really wasn't a hundred percent sure what was going on if it was all grace losing it If it was all the kids just messing with her actually for a little component or a little portion of the time If there was a supernatural aspect at play in this but that idea went out relatively quickly So yeah, it just kept me kind of guessing like what is actually going on until the reveal with her finding The dog frozen outside and then the kids decide to come clean because they're like, okay Well, this has gone too far and she's clearly losing it But at that point it was a runaway train that they just could not stop The oh and also I would say that What this does by setting it up like that and making you feel like kind of unsure about it It actually it's much like the movie the thing going back to that They don't trust each other and the audience doesn't trust the characters because when you watch John Carpenter's the thing It's the same thing all the characters don't trust each other But the audience doesn't trust the characters either and I felt like making it so Kind of veiled as to what is actually going on here. Is it grace losing it or is it the kids just pulling her? You know yanking her leg You as an audience member can't trust anyone and I kind of felt that going through it so much like the thing The use of dolls in this and the doll house was pretty creepy, but used well in my opinion It actually made me think a little bit about the film hereditary because it's used really well in there as well I could really do out do without the moment where grace is kind of like walking around the house at night I think potentially sleepwalking at that point and there's like super aggressive loud organ music being used I couldn't 100% do without that. It was terrible That was a big misstep. I it just it clashed with what was going on in my opinion There's definitely a psychosis component to grace since she has been off of her meds a large Indicator of that is not only her walking around and having those kind of nightmares But it's also her going outside with no plan when she decides to leave She does pack up some provisions so she's not a hundred percent without a plan But she doesn't have a plan of like where she gonna get to how long is it gonna take? You know and she what she didn't even have like the clothing for all of that either she just takes off See at that moment you're kind of like you like you know at that point that she hasn't had her meds in a while because the kids hid those in addition to a bunch of other stuff, but you That's a clear moment where you're just like oh, yeah, this is really taking effect She's been without her meds for a while. She's definitely losing it at this point The image of the sea monkey falling to the bottom of the jar against the ice-laden window was phenomenal that looks so good It's a wonderful image and it's a perfect example of things Coming to an end basically it's it's all hope is gone the last Surviving sea monkey has finally died and it is plummeting to the bottom and no one can be saved at this point basically I Had a feeling it was a combination of the kids messing with grace And then her psychosis getting thrown into the mix the kids slowly peeled away all the work She'd done to undo the cult teaching until they couldn't stop what they had done at that point They basically Re indoctrinated her into the cult through messing with her so much they used all the teachings and practices of the cult what they had learned that they were able to find online in Order to Drive her a little bit crazy now their intention was to get rid of her that way But what they actually ended up doing especially when they took her meds Because that took away a chemical barrier that could have helped not re indoctrinated her They drove her back to the cult basically and and that kind of speaks to an issue of Once you've been indoctrinated with something there's always an ability to be driven back there It's something that's very deep-seated in your psyche It's something that's ingrained into your into your head because that's how indoctrination works That's how cults work. They condition you with a lot of stuff and that's what happens in this film When Richard finds the dollhouse It makes me think that the kids actually use that dollhouse as basically a diorama to plan out everything They were going to end up doing to grace Also, you need to recall that when they were packing up to leave the house in the beginning to go out to the Lodge initially the way it was shot made it feel like they were actually preparing for something It kind of felt like it was the how they would shoot things like in a movie We're like someone's about to go to war and they they're like packing things up and like getting all their provisions and Gear ready. That's how it was kind of shot and I remember when I was watching that I was like it seems like they're prepping for something so I had a feeling they were gonna mess with her, but I didn't know to what degree and It did make me question it not long after when it kind of seemed like she was You know losing it as well And I will say though It doesn't seem realistic that these kids would be able to really pull off what they pulled off in this film They seem a little too smart a little too organized and a little too devious and evil just saying Even though they cut to black to end the film grace definitely kills those kids 100% and you can know you know there are indicators there because first of all she killed Richard We know that she's already been re- indoctrinated into the cult way of thinking and she put the sins Duct tape on the mouths of the kids, which is something that is on all the dead bodies You see who were involved with the cult So that is your indicator that duct tape saying sins on it is your indicator that that's it the kids die They just don't want to show it on screen So this this whole thing plays the idea of how with any step parent entering a family the spirit of the prior Parent looms very very large It it's always a very contentious Relationship and this is just kind of takes that idea of how hard it is for a step parent to kind of come into a family and Replace another parent That's always tough. This kind of takes it and and takes it to a kind of ridiculous level Yeah to make it a truly horrific film and like I was saying in the beginning a lot of people say It's very bleak. It is very bleak, but that's what horror is people So I said I like this film out of five stars with half stars in play I'm gonna give it a good four star rating I thought it was was quite nice and I would recommend it to people I do feel like maybe it was a little bit too Drawn out and slow at times when it wasn't necessary. There is some slowness that's needed for the kind of gradual Layers falling away from grace and her kind of going back to the cult way of thinking But as slow as it was they could have cut it down a little bit more I think but you know good film otherwise so put some comments down here if you've seen the lodge Let's talk about that especially if you have differing opinions either way you liked it more You didn't like it as much you felt the same whatever Do me a quick favor hit that subscribe button because if you like any videos I do that is your way to repay me Just hit that subscribe and if you do just make sure you also hit the notification bell That way you know every time I put up new reviews or unboxings because I do those every now and then or when I'm going live Because I'm doing some live streams doing more in-depth talk about films And if you've already subscribed just hit that like button so you can you know let me know hey I'm still watching but regardless. Thanks for checking this out and until next time keep it brutal