History Film / TheLodge

* LovingAShadow: It's natural that Aiden and Mia would miss their biological mother after her death ([[spoiler:not that the plan they put into motion as revenge for her isn't absurd]]) but they didn't seem to realize Laura had a selfish side to her. In the opening, Laura was unhealthily focused on getting back together with her ex-husband, who was already moving on, and shot herself out of her own misery, despite the fact she had two children who loved her and whom she should have kept going for.

* LovingAShadow: It's natural that Aiden and Mia would miss their biological mother after her death([[spoiler: not that the plan they put into motion as revenge for her isn't absured]]) but they didn't seem to realize Laura had a selfish side to her. In the opening, Laura was unhealthily focused on getting back together with her ex-husband, who was already moving on, and shot herself out of her own misery, despite the fact she had two children who loved her and whom she should have kept going for.

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:Every single character introduced in the story is either dead or will soon be dead by the credits.]]

Christmas proves an opportune time for Richard to enact his plan -- having the kids and Grace stay at the family's remote lodge for the holidays. Though Aidan and Mia eventually accept, they hold firm opposition to Richard's marriage plans and suspicions towards Grace -- sentiments not helped by Richard promptly departing due to work obligations, leaving them essentially isolated from civilization.

* DeconstructorFleet: The story deconstructs multiple different subgenres and tropes associated with them, particularly the horror tropes surrounding the story where an unwanted stepmother moves with her stepkid(s) to a foreign location, such as ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'' and ''Film/HouseAtTheEndOfTheStreet''.

* {{Determinator}}: Wearing nothing more than a couple of blankets, Grace walks for miles in a snowstorm to try to get help. [[spoiler:This goes UpToEleven with the reveal that nobody is dead or in purgatory (and incapable of dying) -- she really did walk that far on her own.]]

* AdultFear:
** The idea that [[spoiler:if you divorce your spouse, they could respond by killing themselves, thus traumatizing your children. In a case of a child experiencing an adult fear, because the family is Catholic, Mia believes her beloved mother didn't go to Heaven.]]
** Your children being stranded in a blizzard, with no electricity, with someone they don't know, trust, or like.
** [[spoiler:Someone taking advantage of your trauma and mental illness to drive you to insanity]].

* HorrorDoesntSettleForASimpleTuesday: They're at the lodge for Christmas (and New Year), though after all of Grace's attempts to decorate the house disappear and leave them in darkness, things get significantly grimmer.

* MinimalistCast: The brunt of the plot centers on three main characters.

*** Even though she is young, Mia [[spoiler:''going down the stairs'' instead of just going to the bathroom in the corner of the attic while her stepmother is in the middle of a psychotic break that she caused]] and Aiden not stopping her.
** Richard leaving his children, who are [[spoiler:in mourning for their mother who violently committed suicide]], alone in the wilderness with their unstable stepmother, who survived a mass suicide.

* GoryDiscretionShot: So, so averted. [[spoiler:Laura's suicide]] and [[spoiler:Grace shooting Richard]] are all shown onscreen.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:The death of Grady, Grace's beloved dog, is enough to bring Aidan and Mia to true remorse as they never wanted him hurt.]]

Richard (Creator/RichardArmitage) plans on divorcing his estranged wife, Laura (Creator/AliciaSilverstone) and marry his younger girlfriend, Grace (Creator/RileyKeough), who is the sole survivor of a fundamentalist suicide cult that Richard had once written a book about. A distraught Laura kills herself, traumatizing the couple's two children Aidan (Creator/JaedenMartell) and Mia (Lia [=McHugh=]). Months later, Richard pushes the children to accept Grace's invitation to stay at the family's remote lodge for Christmas in order to bond, and though Aidan and Mia are against Richard's marriage plans and suspicious of Grace, they eventually accept. But while Richard is away for business, a snowstorm hits and traps the three in the lodge, where strange events begin to occur.

** The idea that if you divorce your spouse, they could respond by killing themselves, thus traumatizing your children. In a case of a child experiencing an adult fear, because the family is Catholic, Mia believes her beloved mother didn't go to Heaven.

* ArcWords: ''Repent.''

* BreakTheCutie: Poor Grace.Every new event just seems determined to crush her spirits.

* CensoredChildDeath: Possibly overlapping with ImprobableInfantSurvival, it ends with the strong implication that [[spoiler:Grace is about to kill Aidan and Mia.]] However, the fact that we don't ''see'' it occur has led to some speculation that [[spoiler:Grace actually came back from her psychotic break and was "only" trying to terrify Aidan and Mia, which might be worse because it leaves the question of what she actually ''will'' do to them afterward.]]
* ChekhovsGun: The heirloom gun that Richard teaches Grace how to shoot. [[spoiler:Which becomes her weapon of choice during her mental breakdown.]]

* CreepyDollhouse: The film begins, in a reference to ''Film/{{Hereditary}}'', with the eerie surroundings of a dark house filled with religious belongings, before revealing it to apparently be the contents of Mia's dollhouse.

* DangerThinIce: Grace falls through the ice while trying to rescue Mia's doll. She's rescued before any serious injury, though.

* DownerBeginning: The film opens with Laura dying by suicide and her funeral, which traumatizes Mia and devastates Aidan.

** Laura kills herself after learning that Richard plans on finalizing their divorce and marrying Grace.

* GoneHorriblyRight: [[spoiler:Aidan and Mia wanted to drive Grace insane. They succeed in the worst possible way with their own demises assured as a result.]]
* GoryDiscretionShot: So, so averted. Laura's suicide and [[spoiler:Grace shooting Richard]] are all shown onscreen.

* HopeSpot: [[spoiler:After Grace shoots Richard, the children manage to escape to Richard's car and try to drive away... Only to almost immediately get stuck in a snowbank.]]

* NothingIsScarier: Though nothing is wrong with the lodge itself, it definitely ''feels'' haunted. When the trio's belongings vanish, it only seems more sinister.

* PolarMadness: Set in a cabin over a snowbound, freezing Christmas, the heating stops working, and Grace starts to hear the voice of her dead father, leading her to believe that she may have accidentally killed everyone in the cabin by using the space heater on the first night. [[spoiler: Made even more explicit by the fact that she hasn't; this is in fact all caused by gaslighting from Aiden and Mia. However, when Grace tries to escape the house to get help and look for her beloved dog Grady, she gets so disorientated, lost, and nearly dies in the snow that an unoccupied house convinces her that Aiden is right and they are all dead.]]

* ShoutOut: Grace's dog being called Grady in reference to the first caretaker from ''Film/TheShining'' and ''Literature/TheShining''.

** Richard leaving his children, who are in mourning for their mother who violently committed suicide, alone in the wilderness with their unstable stepmother, who survived a mass suicide.

--> '''Aidan''': [[spoiler: We were just pretending]].
* WholePlotDeconstruction:

* DeconstructorFleet: The story deconstructs multiple different subgenres and tropes associated with them, particularly the horror tropes surrounding the story where an unwanted stepmother moves with her stepkid(s) to a foreign location, such as ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'' and ''Film/TheHouseAtTheEndOfTheStreet''.

* DeconstructionFleet: The story deconstructs multiple different subgenres and tropes associated with them, particularly the horror tropes surrounding the story where an unwanted stepmother moves with her stepkid(s) to a foreign location, such as ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'' and ''Film/TheHouseAtTheEndOfTheStreet''.