We’ll coin it, “The Hallmark movie from Hell!” One Dad, one new girlfriend, and two reluctant pre-teens on a road trip to a distant lodge in the snowy woods.
Disaster strikes when Dad has to run back to the office and the kids are left alone with the young girlfriend and her purse pup. The electricity goes out and all of their food disappears… this is about the time in your Hallmark movie where everyone realizes that they’re better… together. They reluctantly unite realizing that they have more in common than they thought and they solve their problems and everyone lives happily ever after.
This is not that movie.
Prepare for a roller coaster of emotions while watching The Lodge. You’ll be asking yourself… Is this a dream or reality? Is the house haunted or is the person haunted? Should I never leave my children alone with my new girlfriend? Either way, it’s the best horror movie of 2020.
The Knockturnal’s Kinsey Schofield sat down with the cast of The Lodge and hasn’t slept a wink since…
The Knockturnal: There were a couple of moments… with a really nostalgic feel. For instance, love the scene where Jaeden comes in with a comforter to comfort Lia. Do you have siblings or is this just perfect chemistry?
Lia McHugh: I have four siblings.
The Knockturnal: Are you the favorite?
Lia McHugh: (Shrugs) Yeah.
Jaeden Lieberher: Yeah, you definitely are. I have three siblings. Three half siblings. But yeah, I feel like with us, we spent a lot of time together and it was easy to get into that brother and sister mindset. And you know, we became very close in a short, short time period.
The Knockturnal: Do you mind setting up the plot so I don’t give anything away
Riley Keough: Yeah, we’ve been having a hard time not giving anything away. It’s, children and their Dad’s new girlfriend, go on a snow vacation, in a house, and the Dad leaves them for whatever reason with a woman who is a little unhinged.
Lia McHugh: She has an interesting background.
The Knockturnal: It’s like the Hallmark movie from Hell.
Riley Keough: I love Hallmark movies! And Lifetime.
The Knockturnal: Everything is so relatable and could come to fruition. It’s terrifying.
Lia McHugh: That’s what’s so scary about it.
The Knockturnal: This is the first moving in a long time where the credits pop up and you have to really sit back and digest everything you just witnessed. Even though you were apart of the process, did you have a similar reaction?
Lia McHugh: I couldn’t stop talking to my Mom about it after I watched it at Sundance for the first time. We were just like, we were up until 2am and I just couldn’t stop talking about it. Even though I knew what was going to happen. Just watching it come to life was so crazy. You know, all the little pieces put together, it’s really interesting. It’s cool to watch twice because you notice things you didn’t notice before. Like why things happen, it makes more sense.
The Knockturnal: Did you have a hard time keeping the ending a secret, being so enthusiastic about it?
Lia McHugh: Yeah, I mean, not a lot of people ask about the ending.
Riley Keough: No one cares what I do.
Jaeden Lieberher: (Laughs)
Lia McHugh: The trailer doesn’t really like, it’s very vague. There’s not a lot of in detail questions to ask about the ending because you don’t really know…
The Knockturnal: You look, obviously, very isolated in The Lodge. Where did you shoot? What was the environment like?
Lia McHugh: In Montreal. In the middle of nowhere. In a hotel that looked like The Shining.
Riley Keough: With… a sauna.
Lia McHugh: With a sauna.
Riley Keough: Which was a plus.
Jaeden Lieberher: And a huge tennis court, indoor tennis court.
Lia McHugh: And it was empty! It was very desolate. Because it was like a golf resort in the middle of winter. So nobody was there, it was really just us.
Jaeden Lieberher: And there was one restaurant in the hotel but when there was not enough people, they would just close it… so sometimes we would have nothing to eat!
Riley Keough: Nothing to eat!
Lia McHugh: So we would drive an hour to Walmart and get Ramen Noodles that we could reheat.
Riley Keough: From that very bizarre town.
The Knockturnal: Very similar to the movie.
Lia McHugh: Really put us in that mind frame.
Riley Keough: We had snacks at some point. There was a fridge.
The Knockturnal: I can’t function when I’m cold but Riley, I read the Directors would leave you out in the cold to prepare for scenes. Were you ever sitting there wishing you were a librarian?
Riley Keough: No. No. But I think actors go in to this, maybe it’s just me, but stupid headspace where it’s just like, yes, I’ll do whatever the director tells me to do. And you’re like ok, and they really wanted me to be cold. And I think you kind of want to give it 100 when you’re doing anything and, you can’t act freezing and it only makes sense to be cold.
The Knockturnal: What’s it like to film a scary movie?
Riley Keough: There was one time I think I scared you.
Lia McHugh: When she came out with all of her makeup on. Well, the directors had been chatting with her…
Riley Keough: We were doing it on purpose tho. We wanted her reaction.
Lia McHugh: …Getting her in the head space of like, the scene where she comes up in to the attic. And they were talking to her about it and then she came out of the room and I was like…
Riley Keough: But then when you came out of the bathroom… Do you remember?
Lia McHugh: Yeah, that was freaky!
Riley Keough: There was one time when they were like, we’re actually trying to scare Lia. I was like, this is really mean, but ok!
Lia McHugh: But the rest of the time, I had a blast, it was a lot of fun.
The Knockturnal: That’s interesting to me that it can be such a sinister movie, a heavy film, but you guys had such a blast behind the scenes.
Riley Keough: Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t say I had a blast. But it wasn’t like…
The Knockturnal: Maybe an arctic blast?
Riley Keough: It was. It was an arctic blast. I was pretty like, lonely at times and cold and miserable but it wasn’t like, as horrible as you’d think when you watch the film. Like we weren’t like, afraid making the movie, we’d have fun in between takes…
The Knockturnal: Congratulations on the film. It’s a classic!
(Cue collective thank yous!)
The Lodge is available in theaters on Friday, February the 7th.
Kinsey Schofield is a contributor to The Knockturnal and you can follow her on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
