Hulu

I watched "The Lodge" on Hulu and I have big feelings about it.

I’m not a hundred percent sure what those feelings are. But I have them.

If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s about a man having his son and daughter stay with his wife-to-be alone at his cabin over the winter holiday. He drives them there, then leaves to get back to work, promising to show up for Christmas day.

Only the children are resentful of the stepmom-to-be because they blame her for being the cause of their mother’s suicide. If the dad hadn’t told their mom he wanted a divorce, she wouldn’t have killed herself. And the stepmom-to-be, Grace, is "crazy," as she’s the only survivor of the suicide cult their father was investigating when he met her.

So it’s an all around uncomfortable situation for Grace. She’s in an unfamiliar place with two standoffish children she barely knows and who blame her for ruining their parents’ marriage and causing their mother’s suicide. And there’s no way to leave because the dad drove them there and left with the car.

And then the weirdness starts happening.

That’s the starting premise of the movie.

A woman trapped in the middle of nowhere with two kids and her little dog Grady.

It’s well filmed. Brilliantly acted. Moody and full of a growing dread.

If you want to watch the movie, it’s currently streaming on Hulu.

Amazon ADLINK: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0875KMRN8/?tag=harperkingsley-20

And if you’ve seen it… I have points of discussion like whoa.

Skip the rest of this if you don’t want to be spoiled!!!

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Like, WTF????

My first reaction on twitter was "The Lodge movie: Well, you got what you wanted, you little bastards. smh."

I feel so bad for Grace. She was the biggest victim in the movie.

1. She survived a horrible uber-religious childhood that culminated in a mass suicide.
2. She pulled herself together out of nothing. From a likely segregated community to having her own place and living amongst regular society.
3. She bought herself a dog because she’d had nothing. She went from a hopeless state of mind to having enough hope to get herself a dog because she still had love inside of her that she was willing to share.
4. She was very vulnerable and the married person using her as research material for his book started a romantic relationship with her. Like… She was not ready for a serious relationship. He knew he was married when he seduced her. She was research material for his book. Even if the love on his part was real, it’s still a very questionable situation.
5. She feels guilty that Richard’s wife Laura committed suicide after being told he wanted a divorce so he could remarry.
6. The lodge was FULL of Catholic iconography that triggered her PTSD. Like, Richard takes her and the kids there, doesn’t clear away any of the religious stuff first, and then leaves her there in that creepy place with two hostile kids.
7. Those kids messed with her meds. Drugging her then putting her through withdrawal that resulted in her psychotic episode.
8. They gaslit her into thinking they’d killed them all with that gas heater. Then the kid fakes killing himself but not dying to "prove" that they were all trapped in purgatory.
9. THEY KILLED HER DOG! It might have been on accident, but it was an accident that was a result of their cruelty and maliciousness.

The open end of the movie leaves me wondering what happened afterward.

Did she kill them and herself? Did she kill them and later get found alive in the cabin? Did she kill herself in front of the kids? Like, were they able to talk her around into not shooting them, maybe by pretending to kill themselves a different way? Or maybe because the gun was on the table rather than in her hand they were able to get it away from her and they killed her, got their dad’s cellphone, and were rescued from the cabin?

Whatever happened, the aftermath of the murder-suicide at the lodge…

Wow.

Like, they researched stuff on their dad’s computer and likely used his software and printer to make that fake newspaper article. Even if they lied and said she just went crazy and killed their dad and tried to kill them… there’s evidence that they were terrible kids.

Or if she killed them and herself, would the news share the lurid details of her cult past and paint her as a deranged person while ignoring the fake article and other evidence that the kids were fucking with her? Like, they’d just say she was crazy and turn her into this unsympathetic monster that was given a second chance at life that she ruined with gun violence "for no reason"?

If she survived alone, how sad would that be? To spend the rest of her life in a prison cell or a mental hospital, always questioning her own mind?

Those kids–smh.

They got what they wanted:

They got her to believe their lies. And she never became their stepmother.

Talk about a monkeypaw wish.