‘The Lodge’ Directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala on Building Atmosphere and Referencing ‘Jack Frost’ [Interview] – /FILM

Filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala know how to let a movie get under an audiences skin. Even the simplest of their shots, such asRiley Keoughscratching her knees, elicit discomfort. They maintain that mood of dread throughout the their newest film,The Lodge, their followup toGoodnight Mommy.

Their latest is a chilly head trip of a horror movie about bottled-up emotions exploding into fear, terror, and mystery. Its an unsettling experience best seen blind. This movie lingers long after the credits roll, Chris Evangelista wrote in his review. After the conclusion, I stumbled out of the dark theater into the sunlight, disoriented, excited, and, yes, a little scared. As long as more movies are likeThe Lodge, the horror genre will be in great shape.

Franz and Fiala met when Fiala was babysitting Franzs children. The two bonded over horror movies. Years later, that chance encounter has given the worldThe Lodge. Recently, we spoke to the duo about the horror movie in a mostly spoiler-free conversation about messages, telling a story without heroes and villains, and the Michael Keaton holiday classic,Jack Frost.

Whats it like promoting a movie likeThe Lodge? What have been some telling reactions or questions?

Severin: For us, its hard to talk about it because we dont want to spoil anything or talk too much about it.

Veronika: Thats the hard part.

Severin: Its really hard to what to say about it because we dont want to, its a movie best watched blind. Now, its great if you dont know anything, I think you have the best possible experience. And of course, we love to talk about our work but sometimes we dont because we dont want to ruin the experience for people.

Veronika: Sometimes its interesting when people talk about the father character because they blame him or they say, Oh, how can he leave them at the lodge? Which is strange for us Europeans because, actually, I know a lot of men who kind of would give the new girlfriend and the kids an opportunity to get to know each other and also would leave them in a house, which looks totally safe. So why not? But as an American, I think its kind of an American thing. This father, this protective father thing, and he has to protect the family.

Severin: Father needs to be a hero in a way.

Veronika: Yeah. Father needs almost to be a hero.Actually, for us, no one has to be a hero.

Severin: I mean ideally in our movie, there are no heroes and no bad guys in that sense. Were all humans and we all make mistakes and if youre not able to properly talk about those mistakes you made, then it can create something terrible. But I think the message, if there is one, is talk and be open about your scars.

Veronika: Theres no message. What are you talking about? We dont do messages.

Severin: I think there is.

Veronika: I dont think so.

Severin: Yeah, I think so. Because we did the scene, there is. Its something that we, that keeps coming back to us. I think there is something.

Veronika: No, I dont, obviously, I dont like the expression message. I think you should get people to think. Thats the message.

But there is something you wanted to say, right?

Severin: As said before, hopefully, its a horror film without any monster in it. So its about human beings and I think thats something we want to say about society and about human beings. Its not black and white. Every one of us is capable to be a lover, or a murderer or, everyone has everything inside of himself and its all depending on the situation you are in, in a way. I think this is very fascinating to us and we feel like saying, okay, this is an evil person, makes life and films and everything lot easier. But were not for easy. We like complicated stuff. We like the difficult stuff.

Children are not always innocent like more conventional horror movies.

Severin: I think were never interested in conventional pathways or formulas. We ask ourselves, If those characters were real people, where could they possibly go? Even if they go down the road, which is maybe not a good for a movie plot, theyd take a turn that the movie plot usually wouldnt do. Were interested in that turn. I think the original script ended much sooner. And we were interested in, what would happen after the ending? What would happen after, if it was a conventional film and it ended there, whats after the ending? And thats what kept us going and writing and we felt we need to discover whats happening with those people after it all ends.

[Spoiler Warning]

What was the original ending? You two sort of started from scratch with the story, right?

Veronika: We kind of liked the idea that they wanted to create purgatory in a way and then, in the end, theyre stuck and then accept that purgatory.

Severin: Actually, they dont want to create purgatory.

Veronika: No, they want her to believe being in purgatory

Severin: Believe, and then they create it in a way and then theyre stuck. And the question is, what happens if youre stuck in purgatory? Thats what interested us most, actually. But thats the thing because you made it sound like we had to start from scratch with this script, thats not true. I think its just, we have a very specific way of telling our stories and of how we want to tell films in a visual way and without much dialogue and very atmospheric. And Sergio to be fair, he wrote it, not for us, he wrote it just for himself. And it was a great, playful, very entertaining, thrilling script with such, it was so funny. It had so much funny dialogue and we feel so sad for Sergio because hes a master of writing all those amazing dialogues.

Veronika: We took all of the fun out of it [Laughs].

Severin: Yeah, we took the fun out and were sorry for, Sergio, we are sorry. Thats not what we are good at and what were interested in. So we had to change it in a way. Not because it was not good, but because it was not ours.

[Spoiler Over]

Veronika: Because we like to create a certain atmosphere and to be able to do that, we need as few dialogues as possible.

Severin: Its about silence.

Veronika: Yeah, its about silence. And its about just watching people maybe or listening to something. Usually, screenwriters dont write this down in the script.

Severin: Theyre afraid it might be boring.

Veronika: So we always, when we write like a script ourselves, we always kind of ask ourselves, Oh theres a dialogue that could be a shortcut and it tells everything, but tell it in a scene or tell it with images instead of just talking? This is a very specific way of wanting to create a movie.

Severin: Its why our scripts are usually theyre like maybe 60 pages long.

Veronika: Goodnight Mommy was something like 62 pages.

Severin: And because there is so little dialogue and the problem is Thats okay. In Austria, all films that are government, state-funded in a way. In America, where bond companies and production companies and banks. Thats hard to argue to sell, this is only 60 pages and then you work on an eighth of the page and you work your whole day and then they are freaking out and saying okay going to need 80 shooting days for the whole thing. How is it going to work out? We know our way of making films and somethings, atmosphere, ambiance, this takes a lot of time for us and we know its important and its going to pay off. Another thing we are much quicker with dialogue scenes because we love improvisation and I think we can do maybe seven or eight pages if it contains a lot of dialogue. But if its the visual and atmospheric stuff, it just takes longer. And I think we know that about us, but its hard if you do films in a different system and people dont know you and dont know the way you make films. So we had a hard time like explaining it to companies all the time, how we believe its right for the movie.

Where does imagining the atmosphere start for you both? Like you said, its a long process, but what were your initial ideas about how you wanted the sound and images to unnerve people?

Severin: Actually, one of the very first ideas was to start, because the movie starts in the summertime, to start in the like more colorful way and kept moving camera and stuff and then to go nearly to a black and white feeling just like white snow and darkness. That was one of the earliest ideas I think.

Veronika: Originally we even wanted to start with idyllic garden actually and flowers and like an artificial garden in front of the dollhouse.

Severin: It should have a David Lynch feeling to it.

Veronika: Should have a David Lynch feeling in the beginning that is like an artificial garden. And you never know. I mean, we really throughout, as Severin always say, we like this feeling that you dont know where to go. And you dont know if you will be on the ice, on the ice surface, and you go on and you dont know, you hear it cracking and you never know, is this going to break? Or is it safe? And so we liked this idea that you, kind of, go through the whole movie and you never know, is this now true? Is this real? Is this one of the layers or one of the tricks.

Severin: Yeah, we tried to film like it was an idea of a Thimios, our cinematographer, very early on to film the actual lodge as if a dollhouse, and then we had his dollhouse created, which looks like the lodge and we wanted the audience never to be too sure where they are right now. And maybe larger question is who is playing with the puppets in the dollhouse, but also in the real lodge, whos playing with those people?

Veronika: Then were kind of actually shellshocked when we find out, were starting to shoot at the same time Hereditary premiered at Sundance and we only heard, Oh, its about the dollhouse, its about the family in a house. Its about a trauma in the beginning. And we were like, Oh my God, whats going on? Actually, it was only a week ago that I saw Hereditary because I always said, I want to see that. I want to see it. Because its strange. Theyre like certain similar ideas we had basically at the same time. I mean I asked, he was first, but we didnt know.

Severin: The funny thing is we got to know him. Weve got to know Ari Aster at one point.

Veronika: I told him.

Severin: Yeah. I think what might inspire like similar visuals and similar sense for storytelling is that we realized we share our love for film history and for similar films. So I think we both admire the same filmmakers and love the same filmmakers. I think this leads to something that might be connected in a way.

Veronika: But I was very glad that Ive seen it because, yeah, it has some similarities, but people ask us. So for me, it was time to confront myself. And actually, I think the dollhouse, with Ari Aster, its a very kind of, shes just building dollhouses. Its not, its not more or less than that. But in our case, I think its used differently.

Very different. I have to ask about one of the biggest scares in this movie, which is the clip fromJack Frost.

Veronika: [Laughs] Yes! You are the first person asking us about Jack Frost.

[Laughs] Another movie about loss.

Veronika: It was very difficult, actually.

Severin: Its a very long, very sad story for us. Because it was always in the script and then there were different movies, some cheesy Christmas flick, whatever. Then we started to look for movies we could potentially use and came across this clip of Jack Frost with our editor and we fell so in love with it and it was way longer. Its not like it is in the movie. We had this huge Jack Frost sequence in the film.

Veronika: And the thing was similar.

Severin: We watched it [for a] very long time and every time we watched our movie in the editing room, we watched it a hundred times. Were only looking forward to the moment when they watch Jack Frost because then we could see Jack Frost and we loved it so badly. But unfortunately, it turned out that Michael Keaton seems not to be a great fan of that movie. Thats why we had to use a very short excerpt and without Michael Keatons voice. And so that was the only clip we could use and we still love it, but we would have felt much more of Jack Frost in the movie.

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'The Lodge' Directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala on Building Atmosphere and Referencing 'Jack Frost' [Interview] - /FILM