The Lodge(2020)

Plot Summary

• Laura Hall (Alicia Silverstone), separated from her writer husband, Richard (Richard Armitage), commits suicide after Richard informs her he plans to marry Grace Marshall (Riley Keough), a woman he met while researching a book about a fundamentalist Christian cult. Raised in the cult, Grace was the sole survivor of their mass suicide, led by her father, Aaron. Laura's death devastates her and Richard's children, teenage Aidan (Jaeden Lieberher) and young Mia (Lia McHugh).Six months later, Richard announces to his children at Thanksgiving that they will spend Christmas together with Grace at the family's remote lodge in rural western Massachusetts to get to know each other. That night, Aidan and Mia access their father's computer and uncover Grace's past, including disturbing video footage of the cult, showing each of the deceased followers draped in purple silk with a strip of duct tape across their mouths reading "Sin."Several days before Christmas, the four arrive at the lodge, where the children act openly hostile toward Grace and refuse efforts to bond with her. When Richard departs back to the city for a work obligation, the children continue to act abrasively toward her. Grace's unease is compounded by the abundance of Catholic iconography in the cabin, which causes her to have nightmares about her father. Tensions rise after Grace catches Aidan watching her shower. However, after being reprimanded, Aidan softens and one night prepares Grace a cup of cocoa while she and Mia watch movies.In the morning, Grace awakens to discover that all of her belongings- including her clothing, psychiatric medication, and pet dog- are missing. The food has also disappeared from the cabin, as well as Christmas decorations she put up the day before. The generator has gone out, leaving all of their cell phones dead. Grace suspects the children have prank-ed her, but finds their belongings missing as well. She notices the clocks in the house have advanced to January 9th. A tearful Aidan tells Grace that he dreamed a gas heater in the living room malfunctioned and they all suffocated, and expresses fear that they may be in the afterlife.Over the following several days, Grace - succumbing to anxiety, medication withdrawal, hunger, and cold - begins sleep walking, and is tormented by disturbing visions and dreams, including the recurrent voice of her father sermonizing. She attempts to walk to the nearest town, discovering a cross-shaped cabin where she sees her father beckoning to her from inside. She eventually travels in a circle, taking her back to the lodge. Buried in the snow, she discovers a photo of Aidan and Mia in a memorial frame, and inside, finds the children frantically praying over a newspaper article detailing the deaths of all three from carbon monoxide poisoning on December 22nd. Aidan hysterically insists they are in purgatory, and hangs himself in the attic as proof that they are dead, only to inexplicably survive.Grace suffers a nervous breakdown, which intensifies when she finds her dog frozen to death outside. She then enters a catatonic state on the porch. Worried she might die of exposure, the children finally admit to Grace that they have been gas-lighting her the entire time, having drugged her, hidden their possessions in a crawlspace, and played recordings of her father's sermons at night via a wireless speaker. Mia has been calling Richard daily so that he will not suspect something is wrong. With their own phones dead at last, the children unsuccessfully attempt to start the generator and bring Grace her medication, but find her now completely insane.... wholly convinced that they are in purgatory and must do penance to ascend to heaven.That night, the children find Grace self-flagellating by burning herself on the hearth. They barricade themselves in the attic, but are confronted by Grace in the morning, who insists they must "sacrifice something for the Lord." Richard returns to discover an inconsolable Grace brandishing his pistol. In an attempt to prove her belief that they are in purgatory, she fires the gun at him, killing him. Aidan and Mia attempt to flee in the car, but get stuck in the snow. Grace forces the children back into the lodge, where she seats them at the dinner table with their father's corpse and sings "Nearer, My God, to Thee." She then affixes pieces of duct tape reading "sin" to each of their mouths before contemplating the gun to kill them....

Storyline

• A soon-to-be-stepmom is snowed in with her fiance's two children at a remote holiday village. Just as relations finally begin to thaw between the trio, strange and frightening events threaten to summon psychological demons from her strict religious childhood. — Callum Price Aidan and Mia are reluctant to accept Grace, their father's new girlfriend; but when the two children and the woman get snowed into a house in the middle of a frozen landscape, they will have no choice but to get along, while Grace's terrible past comes to light. — Sitges Film Festival A bone-chilling nightmare from the directors of Goodnight Mommy, The Lodge follows a family who retreat to their remote winter cabin over the holidays. When the father (Richard Armitage) is forced to abruptly depart for work, he leaves his children, Aidan (IT's Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Lia McHugh) in the care of his new girlfriend, Grace (Riley Keough). Isolated and alone, a blizzard traps them inside the lodge as terrifying events summon specters from Grace's dark past. — NEON In the wake of an appalling tragedy, the emotionally scarred siblings, Aidan and Mia, find themselves stuck with their dad's new girlfriend, Grace, for the Christmas holidays. Holed up in the family's remote lakeside cabin somewhere in the snow-capped wilderness of Massachusetts, they will soon get the chance to show their true feelings about Grace, when their journalist father, Richard, has to leave them in the care of their stepmother to-be. But, before long, as a relentless blizzard cuts them off from the outside world, inexplicable, hair-raising occurrences push everyone beyond their limits, triggering vivid hallucinations of a traumatic, well-hidden past. Now, the inner demons demand more. Is there an escape from the lodge? — Nick Riganas