Abhirun Das

Either people are incredibly stupid or they are just plain right biased. "The Lodge" isn't a screamfest horror filled with cheap jump scares. It's a psychological horror played out in all its finest. Everyone's complaining about how it was slow. Psych-horrors are always slow, they have a slow build up that messes with your mind and brings in the ambiguity in the events that is happening, all until the madness overflows and sheer terror takes over. The movie starts off brilliant with a very abrupt, violent way that immediately sets your mind into a pattern of thinking that it is going to be somewhere along those lines and then suddenly, veers your mind off into a slow and cool pace. Already, your mind is off the pace grasping to anticipate as to what happens next. What happens next is a very well done psychological narration of bizarre events that not only bewilders the lead actress but it also leaves the audience asking: what is real and what is not? The ending is brilliant, culminating as it would after the main character goes into full mental breakdown mode. The slow burn of the terror in this movie, as we watch Riley's mind crack under the loneliness, the alienation from the children and her own past takes a toll on our minds too. Riley was brilliant in this movie portraying the degrading mind of a psychologically traumatized victim. She had a helpless sense about her even as she went about in the earlier parts of the movie with a flicker of a smile on her face. The movie was tremendous too; in its aesthetic cinematography and the gloomy, ominous music tones. This movie is a masterpiece that delivers in bring your dread not horror. It's not about stupid ghosts and spirits, it's about real demons that live inside our heads. Forget what people are reviewing about this, go and watch it yourself. There's a lot of symbolism in this movie; purgatory, sins, flaggation. You'd love it.