The Lodge * * * ½

        I guess religion is always a reliable and effective inspiration for horror.  I mean when it comes to torture, angst, dread and evil forces it's hard to go past the holy books.
       So we have a crazy young woman out of her medication and out of her mind, having memories of her horrendous  childhood.  Grace was raised in a Christian cult with shades of Jonestown.

I want my old Mummy back!

      Now she is older.  She has been going out with her psychiatrist (never a good move).  He decides a week in the country would be nice.  Grace can get to know his two kids.  The kids are none too happy about Grace taking the place of their dead mother.  They too are suffering from tortured memories of their mothers death and the way she died.  The idiot priest said some insensitive judgmental things at the funeral causing the children to wonder if Mum will make it to heaven. Being devout Catholics they take this stuff seriously.  Further, as far as the kids are concerned, Grace has more than a casual connection to Mum's death.
      During their stay at "The Lodge" the psychiatrist has to go back to town.  Unfortunately just after he leaves, the snow comes in and the electricity gets cut off,  leaving Grace and the two kids locked away in a snow bound remote house.
      Let the games begin!
       I'm not sure if the theme here is grappling for spiritual redemption, or the misery that religion can cause, especially when we get into mortification of the flesh. Don't worry, we see it more from the other side of the room than gruesome close-up. Though how she could walk afterward is beyond me.
       Normal people don't behave like this, so predictably the evil force is explained away as mental illness (again!).  Which is a bit tough on the many kind and decent people out there who happen to suffer from  mental illness.
      Some of the scenes that scare us in The Lodge are not to do with what is happening, so much as what Grace dreams about, or what she thinks is happening.  She sleep walks around the lodge remembering horrific visions from her childhood.  There are some well choreographed and paced scenes here, both visually and aurally. I must say I loved the thunderous sound of a church organ in one scene.  It worked beautifully.  A sequence of Grace walking through the snow to discover a house like a cross on a hill is also memorable.
       But her dreams soon spill into reality and things are just as crazy, leaving us to wonder, are the Children playing cruel tricks on her?
      Like, It Comes at Night I thought this is a better than average modern horror, and certainly more satisfying than the overrated Hereditary.