TALES FROM THE LODGE (2019)

Studio:      XYZ Films
Director:    Abigail Blackmore
Writer:      Abigail Blackmore
Producer:  Richard Wylie, Ed Barratt
Stars:     Mackenzie Crook, Dustin Demri-Burns, Laura Fraser, Sophie Thompson, Johnny Vegas, Kelly Wenham

Review Score:

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Summary:

Six friends share strange stories while gathered to mourn a dead loved one and end up living out a true terror tale themselves.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Longtime friends from university Joe and his wife Martha, Russell and his wife Emma, and Paul and his new girlfriend Miki gather at a remote cabin to spread the ashes of their friend Jonesy, who drowned himself in the lake outside three years earlier. Martha takes umbrage with Miki’s presence since Miki did not know Jonesy.

Paul tells everyone a story about renting his Mercedes to a man he never met. When the car was supposed to be returned, the unknown man instead sends a taxi that takes Paul to a remote farmhouse. Paul finds his car in the barn with a bloody woman on the hood. Paul tries driving away as a masked man with a machete approaches. Another vehicle hits Paul’s car. Paul recovers as authorities arrive, but has no idea what happened to the killer or the victim. Martha calls out Paul for making up a terrible story about why he didn’t bring his Mercedes.

Miki and the five friends scatter Jonesy’s ashes at the lake. Joe reveals he is terminally ill and requires a heart transplant. Martha continues being rude to Miki.

Martha tells a story about a man named Dean who worried that his wife Amanda was becoming bored in their marriage. Desperate to add some excitement, Dean takes Amanda on a ghost walk in an abandoned asylum where monks were murdered. Dean becomes upset when Amanda flirts with their tour guide Zeke Holloway. Zeke gives the couple hoodoo oil that he says should be spread on their door to prevent spirits from following them home, but Amanda forgets to use it.

Amanda begins waking up at 3am every morning to find Dean in an alarming trance. However, Amanda experiences the best sex she has ever had when Dean goes into these trances. Dean has no recollection of the sex sessions and Amanda never tells him, even though Dean feels like his soul is slowly dying inside.

Martha and Miki have another argument. Miki also gets upset with Russell for repeatedly calling her Nikki. Miki storms off outside alone when Paul inadvertently insults her after sex.

At dinner, Russell tells a story about a zombie apocalypse survivor who looks like Kiefer Sutherland in the year 2045. The unnamed man teams up with a young girl to battle zombies. The man then escorts the girl to a place he claims is a community of fellow survivors. However, it turns out to be a trap set to feed the girl to the man’s undead daughter.

Miki returns to the house screaming. Miki claims there is a man in the woods. Everyone discovers that the phone is dead and all of the cars are missing, with one being submerged in the lake.

Paul tells Joe that he was supposed to go fishing with Jonesy over the weekend he died, but Paul got caught up with a woman instead. Joe describes a nightmare for Paul in which Joe finds himself trapped in a cage in a hospital basement with a demented doctor and strange musical band. Before he can receive his heart transplant, Joe has to look behind an ominous curtain. When he pulls it back, Joe sees his head on Martha’s body.

Once everyone regroups in the house, Miki feeds cupcakes to the five friends. Emma recounts her pregnancies as a horror story about the pain from another person growing inside your body. Paul, Martha, Joe, Russell, and Emma eventually become partially paralyzed by muscle relaxants Miki put in the cupcake icing.

Miki tells a story about how Jonesy had fallen in love with Paul and planned a fishing weekend at the cabin to tell him. However, Paul didn’t show up because he was having an affair with Martha. Feeling betrayed, Jonesy walked to a pub where he seduced a Slovakian man named Ludo who looked like Jonesy. Jonesy faked his death by killing Ludo. He then used Ludo’s passport to go to Germany for a sex change. Jonesy became Miki.

Initially intending to ask Paul to marry her, events of the evening instead convince Miki to kill everyone. Taking pity on Joe because Martha cheated on him and he has a heart condition, Miki allows Joe to leave.

Miki ties up Paul, Martha, Russell, and Emma. Miki stabs everyone in their legs and douses them in oil as she prepares to light them on fire.

Joe unexpectedly returns, fights with Miki, and finally stabs Miki in her chest. The five friends begin walking toward town in the dark with Miki in pursuit.

A man driving a van stops to pick up Paul, Martha, Joe, Russell, and Emma. The five friends urge the man to speed away as Miki throws her lighter at the vehicle. The camera cuts to black.

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Review:

Jonesy drowned himself in a lake three years ago. Caught up in their own personal problems related to marriage, children, and terminal illnesses, his longtime university chums Paul, Martha, Joe, Russell, and Emma weren’t there with Jonesy at the time. They’re present now though. All five friends have gathered at the remote cabin where Jonesy died to memorialize the man by ceremoniously scattering his ashes.

Also in attendance is Paul’s latest fling Miki. Martha isn’t sure if she should be mad at Paul for bringing her or at Miki for crashing what was meant to be an intimate gathering of Jonesy’s closest mates. Martha settles on making sure Miki feels her contempt at every available opportunity anyway.

Everyone else decides to make the most of a glum situation by honoring Jonesy the best way they know how: swapping silly, scary stories that would have earned a snicker from their dearly departed pal. Paul quips a quick ditty about a masked slasher. Martha spins a yarn where a paranormal ghost hunt has unexpected consequences for a troubled husband and wife. Russell sets his story in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

As the evening rolls forward, the sextet becomes stuck in a true terror tale when a man appears in the woods outside. The power is cut. The phone goes dead. All of the cars inexplicably go missing. The stories don’t stop, but fiction turns into reality as the situation exposes secrets no one could have foreseen.

Because of its portmanteau format, “Tales from the Lodge” broadly qualifies as an anthology. Really though, the throughline of Miki and the five friends isn’t a typical wraparound so much as a main course. The handful of short vignettes accents the core story with various asides, although you could have an independently functional character study for 45 minutes if the ‘campfire tales’ disappeared completely.

Its darkly humorous streak also earns “Tales from the Lodge” general classification as ‘comedy-horror,’ which isn’t entirely accurate either. “Tales from the Lodge” stirs approximately three parts drama, two parts horror, and one part humor to blend a quirky cocktail that tastes differently depending on how a personal palate is prepared.

Basically, with multiple genres in play on one side and a small slew of separate stories on the other, “Tales from the Lodge” features two different handfuls of mixed nuts. Viewers can choke on any one of those components if they’re not careful. Yet if pumps are primed accordingly, “Tales from the Lodge” can hit sweet spots of unique entertainment that can’t quite be contained within overly reductive descriptions. Individual enjoyment truly comes down to correctly calibrated expectations.

Like any collection of disparate pieces, the six or so segments land with disparate degrees of success. Frankly, if you’re looking to fill out short lists of outstanding horror anthology chapters, “Tales from the Lodge’s” aren’t going to rank alongside anything from Amicus or “Creepshow.”

Having minor impact has little to do with execution. “Tales from the Lodge” squeezes the max out of a minimum budget. Front to back, left to right, from lighting and camerawork to makeup and editing, every discipline turns in A+ effort. “Tales from the Lodge” certainly looks like an enviable indie movie whose passion on both sides of the lens contributes greatly to a carefully crafted production.

Conception causes more trouble, as the horror doesn’t come with a whole lot of heaviness. The first two segments specifically, Joe’s bit about a machete-wielding maniac and Martha’s story of spicing up marital sex through demonic possession, conspicuously do not include endings. Emma’s spin comes and goes so quickly, she just delivers it in a monologue without any visual aids. Russell’s brief zombie romp remains light on substance too, although Johnny Vegas’ charm as a mulleted Kiefer Sutherland wannabe playing a schlubby Mad Max hero makes up for it.

Takes on horror tropes have more zip on the lip. Don’t think “Shaun of the Dead” or any outright comedy along those lines. “Tales from the Lodge” simmers satire more subtly. As someone who has suffered through more haunted building “found footage” films than a Cray supercomputer could count, I particularly appreciate the nod to an abandoned asylum where monks were murdered. Also high up on the laugh list is a callout to classic zombies not just shambling slowly, but casting crap creatures in the background while quality makeup features up front. Creator Abigail Blackmore knows classic genre clichés, but doesn’t style her script to repeatedly elbow you in the ribs about it.

As one would expect given the project’s divergent DNA, comedy hits hills and valleys too. A recurring gag about quiche isn’t funny the first time, and yet the film keeps boomeranging back to it hoping desperate persistence will pay off with a chuckle. It doesn’t. On the other hand, an ingenious use of Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast” to accompany a certain montage provides one of the brighter flashes of inspired hilarity.

“Tales from the Lodge” finds greater strengths in unexpected places. Chiefly, in its interpersonal relationship building. Being of a similar age, it personally resonated with me that the friends featured are facing perils particular to being fortysomething, which isn’t a demographic seen often in this context. The group’s struggles to reconcile where they once foresaw themselves versus current stations involving loveless relationships, annoying offspring, and untimely medical diagnoses add deeper meaning to “Tales from the Lodge” as a surprisingly bittersweet drama.

Abigail Blackmore may be a first time feature writer/director, but she has credits as an actress dating as far back as 1989. Accordingly, Blackmore puts performances first, making “Tales from the Lodge” a character-driven showcase for six terrific talents who tune themselves to fluctuating frequencies of sober emotion, lighthearted frivolity, and full-on fear.

Blackmore goes another six miles for invested authenticity by having each actor direct his/her individual segment. Their collective work comes off as a truly collaborative endeavor prioritizing insightful exploration of peculiar personalities under a cracked lens of weird spooks and mild absurdity. Blackmore’s creative call to let her charismatic cast commandeer the wheel proves to be the right tactic for sailing against winds of flighty side stories and hit-or-miss humor.

Call it a horror-comedy anthology for lack of a simpler term. But understand that “Tales from the Lodge” goes down smoother when taken as a sometimes warped, often heartfelt drama its curb appeal doesn’t initially imply. It’s a hard movie to pin down with succinct words, which is bad for anyone misled to anticipate something “Tales from the Lodge” is not, but good for anyone up for something slightly outside the box.

Review Score: 70

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