The Lodge
by Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz

After a family tragedy, a father makes an effort to get his children to bond with his new girlfriend at their family vacation home in the middle of nowhere. Of course, work is more important than family, and the father soon finds himself leaving his children with a woman they barely know as he returns to town.

The Lodge starts off well enough with an interesting set up and a peek at some children who have experienced some trauma and how they’re dealing with it when they obviously see that dad seems to be doing just fine. There is also a nice parallel between the children experiencing something awful and the father’s girlfriend experiencing something awful during her childhood. This was a great opportunity for the film to explore how different people process experiences in their own ways and it does, for a bit, and then kind of goes off the rails. The first act really had my attention, but about halfway through I found myself bored and disinterested. By the time the film had wrapped up I just couldn’t find myself even caring about whether I’d even seen it through to the end or not.

With a great setting and cinematography, The Lodge did have a few good things about it. It handled tension well and the characters, at first, were interesting enough with qualities both good and bad that you wanted the film to explore. As I previously mentioned, the set up is great, and the first big plot point was pretty unexpected, at least it was to me anyway. (No spoilers for you!) The time of year and the weather make for great atmosphere and the kids aren’t too annoying as children often tend to be in movies. The girlfriend’s family history also adds another compelling element, but all of these things do not make for a great film when not written and executed effectively.

I think where things went wrong for me is that too many things are thrown into the mix and I felt like the film was trying to tackle more than it could handle. Mental illness, cults, religion, suicide, death, the supernatural… the list goes on. When you’ve got too many ingredients, the dish can end up being worse off than if you hadn’t added enough seasoning. The film had potential, but it never really goes anywhere and the ending falls majorly flat and is underwhelming.

I have definitely seen worse films than The Lodge, and I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, I’m just saying that I wasn’t impressed or very entertained in the end. If you like a slow building, mediocre psych thriller, then I say give it a go, but maybe go into it not expecting anything at all and you’ll find yourself enjoying it more than I did. You can stream The Lodge right now on Hulu or rent from Amazon Prime.

(This review originally appeared on Horror Metal Sounds.)