The Lodge

“Scary as hell… the next great horror film is here”

Chris Evangelista. SLASHFILM

“A relentless, mind-bending nightmare”

Perri Nemiroff, COLLIDER

“Nerve-shredding”

Tim Grierson, SCREEN DAILY

Richard Marsh (Richard Armitage) is an acclaimed non-fiction author whose focus has been on extreme Christian cults. Over the course of his research, he has fallen in love with Grace (Riley Keough), the sole survivor of a sect’s mass suicide. Consequently, he’s in the process of a divorce from his wife, Laura (Alicia Silverstone). Much to the outrage of his children, Aidan (Jaeden Lieberher) and Mia (Lia McHugh), Grace soon becomes Richard’s fiancé. They refuse to accept her as their stepmother. Given Grace’s baggage when it comes to her own relationship with family, this poses no small problem. They head to a remote lodge in the dead of winter to celebrate Christmas together. Soon, a blizzard descends. Inexplicable, terrifying things begin to happen.

A profoundly frightening film that frequently forces you to re-evaluate your perceptions of characters’ intentions, THE LODGE is the harrowing English-language debut of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, whose brilliant work previously chilled the Fantasia screen with GOODNIGHT MOMMY and THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL. They direct with arresting precision, using tropes to turn against the expectations they set up while embarking on a continued exploration of their staple themes of mistrust, corroded familial bonds and the horrors of misdirected anger, shot through the prism of a conflict between atheism and faith. A queasy sense of menace permeates the film from its opening moments, ascending to a crescendo that’s almost unbearable in its hermetic intensity. Brought to life by a uniformly phenomenal cast, this is a film whose horrors are both intellectual and deeply visceral, with imagery that will have your heart in your throat. Co-Produced by Hammer Films, shot (in Longueuil!) by Yorgos Lanthimos’ regular cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis, with production design and art direction by Montreal’s Sylvain Lemaitre. Do you need more reasons to see this? You do not. Brace yourself. – Mitch Davis