This is pretty much a hot mess. Definitely an example of when "prestige horror goes wrong." On-point aesthetics trying to trick you into not seeing that there’s not much here: a real mishmosh of stolen ideas and half-baked if not wholly vacant concepts. But its vibe is worth at least a little (and I like Riley Keough) so it’s not an abysmal by any means. It did function as the perfect counterpoint in today’s Tuesday double feature with The Night House: a film which has more than enough meat on the bone to equal the surface-level spookiness.

This movie so badly wants to be Hereditary, evident by its use of closeups inside a kid’s dollhouse. These shots are technically well-done but are ultimately meaningless. The Lodge is over 90% window dressing. Spoilers ahead on the “plot” …

After a semi-religious Alicia Silverstone blows her brains out because her husband is going to marry someone else, the dad is left to pick up the pieces with this younger woman (Keough, who looks quite a lot like her) and his teen son and pre-teen daughter aren’t happy about it. Oh, and Keough’s character survived living in a SUPER-religious cult that dad just so happened to write a book about when she was still a member of it. This, naturally, brings up a lot of questions about the dad’s motivations but don’t worry: he’s hardly in this and they don’t even attempt to answer any of them. That was just the simplest way for the kids to find out about her and relay exposition on her past to the audience. As lazy as it gets, folks. (Also: the video footage from the cult, which ended in a mass suicide is a straight rip-off of the Heaven’s Gate fiasco, right down to the purple blankets and shoes lined up by the beds — just zero original ideas here.)

The kids aren’t adjusting well, so dad thinks it’s a good idea to go away to their “lodge” house in the middle of the woods for Christmas. However, he immediately gets called back to civilization for “business” (you know the type of business that non-fiction authors just can’t get out of during Christmas) and reluctantly leaves his new bride-to-be with his children.

This unearths the first of many plot-holes because what transpires next insinuates that the kids knew all along they were going to be left alone with her. Oh well.

Basically this could have been called “When Pranks Go Wrong” because these two psychopaths pull off the most convoluted “prank” on this poor lady that you’ve ever seen. Strange things start happening and it’s made to seem that it’s the former cult lady’s doing. Apparently, they all died and they’re trapped in purgatory, the lodge is freaking purgatory! At one point, the boy hangs himself in the attic and screams, “See? We can’t die!” or something. But, nope! It’s all just an elaborate prank by the children to make her feel like she’s going insane. The best part of the “prank” imo is when they let their stepmom-to-be’s little dog out and it freezes to death. Haha! Good one, kids!

So, obviously, there’s a lot going on here. They printed out a fake obituary before they left, figured out how to cut off all the power and water in the house without her knowing how to switch it back on, learned how to make a fully functional non-lethal noose (!?)... and on and on and on. When she finds the little dog’s frozen body and suffers severe frostbite, they decide it’s finally time to say “Gotcha!” only she’s been through a lot in her life and this insanely sick prank has pushed her back over the edge. This turned out to be a real “reap what you sow” type of situation, huh kids? Hope you learned your lesson (I didn't).

Fully detached from reality, she shoots their dad in the head as soon as he gets back, props his dead body up at the dinner table and starts singing a hymnal which the kids join in on (for some reason). The movie ends with her putting duct tape over their mouths (with the word “SIN” written on it — just like in her cult’s mass suicide); they cut to a shot of the gun and roll credits!

A “4” is arguably too high a score for this one, but on some level I do appreciate how you can make a movie as dumb as this look so competent and relatively lovely. And, perhaps, that’s the greatest prank of all.