Little Bone Lodge (2023) When Little, this Lodge offers plenty to Chill the Bones (Review)

The home invasion sub-genre is characterised by claustrophobia, intensity and genuine scares. Unsurprisingly, it often works as a chamber piece, with a small cast, limited locations and threatening mise-en-scene. One of the key themes is the tension between inner and outer, a theme made all the more apparent in Little Bone Lodge which takes place in a lonely farmhouse firmly locked against the elements. Within this home dwells a family: Mama (Joely Richardson), Maisy (Sadie Soverall) and Pa (Roger Ajogbe), who is confined to a wheelchair and in need of constant care. This cosy home contrasts sharply with the dangerous outdoors of the Scottish Highlands, through which a car races and, as tends to be the case when you race through a storm, comes a cropper. As also tends to be the case, when there’s a knock at the door, things rapidly become not good at all.

Filmmakers working in this sub-genre lean towards a down-to-earth and brutish nastiness, with human cruelty and physical injury characterising The Strangers, Funny Games and You’re Next. Director Matthias Hoene does much the same here, as one of the strangers at the door, Jack (Neil Linpow, who also wrote the script) is injured and we are treated to a graphic scene of home surgery. More interesting, perhaps, is a strong element of emotional torment. The relationship between Jack and his brother Matty (Harry Cadby) is fraught and results in some distressing scenes, suggesting mental health problems and the difficulty in dealing with these, both for the person suffering as well as the one with caring responsibilities. Caring responsibilities also characterise the home inhabitants, as Mama is extremely caring towards Pa as well as Maisy, to an extent that becomes less comforting than it originally seemed.

The juxtaposition of these two family units echoes the analysis of the critic and academic Robin Wood, who wrote that the source of all horror is family. The two families on display here steadily reveal details both surprising and sinister. Hoene keeps this delivery gradual, such as the mention of no phone, television or internet, and when a radio is revealed, it is clearly clandestine. A shutter that bangs continually in the wind suggests something that is barely contained, as does the wound in Jack’s stomach that prompts emergency surgery but then steadily seeps open. This body horror escalates along with the film’s gnawing tension, before some truly grotesque moments come as severe shocks. Hoene makes a benefit of the imposing farmhouse, the welcoming hallway and kitchen giving way to a sinister workshop. Nuha Mekki’s production design highlights the constructed notion of ‘home’, as different areas of the house indicate very different concepts indeed.

Within this space are a clutch of strong performances. Linpow does a fine job of balancing Jack’s humanity and desperation, a conflict that sometimes manifests as cruelty. Cadby does fall into stereotypically childlike wailing and flailing, but that is more a cliché of the script than his performance and as someone overcome by the forces in his head, he convinces. Richardson is a tour-de-force as Mama, casting aside the charming but somewhat anodyne roles she held previously in such work as Event Horizon, The Patriot and Red Sparrow. Indeed, the subversion of expectations around Richardson expresses those of the film more broadly in terms of motherhood, referred to in voiceover at the opening and close of the film. While these expectations are not exactly proved wrong, they play out in rather startling ways. Soverall provides a convincing portrait of a sheltered waif, until the final act requires her to make some less than convincing leaps.

For most of its runtime, Little Bone Lodge focuses on the interpersonal, which is manifested by psychological and body horror. When it does this, the film is gripping and gruelling, revelations are horrific and character choices consistent. Where it starts to fall apart is, perhaps unsurprisingly, when the scope expands outwards and we leave the confines of the house. There is a crime thread to the plot that brings in extraneous elements and feels forced, spoiling the claustrophobia with a finale that is more reminiscent of A Fistful of Dollars than Straw Dogs. While the coda attempts a return to the earlier menace, it stretches credibility and feels discordant, leaving the viewer wondering, ‘Hang on, how did
we get to there?’ This is unfortunate because, when it stays focuses on the little, this lodge offers some bone chilling (and even crunching) moments that will remind you of the wisdom of keeping your door locked, but also prompt you to wonder why someone chooses to keep the door locked all the time.

Vincent’s Archive: Little Bone Lodge