Interview with The Lodge’s Filmmaking Duo, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala

The Lodge is one of my most highly anticipated movies of 2020. After the incredible Goodnight Mommy, a chilling and unsettling thriller out of Austria, I could not wait to see the English language follow up by filmmaking duo, Veronkia Franz and Severin Fiala. And oh, damn. The Lodge is a satisfying slow burn that really fucks with your head. I was lucky enough to speak with Veronika and Severin, and we discussed how they bonded over VHS cassettes, what they have coming up next, and of course, horror movies.

PH: I watched The Lodge and loved it. It’s so good, and the twist… just did not see it coming. 

SF: Thank you so much.

PH: Absolutely. The Lodge is tense and unsettling. What was your inspiration for this creepy thriller?

SF: Actually, the story may be a bit boring. After our film, Goodnight Mommy, it was surprisingly successful in the States. We got many offers and many scripts all involving evil twins, and we didn’t want to do them. And then we tried to finance another film in Austria, a period film which we couldn’t finance. At one point we just had a script on the desk which said, “Untitled Hammer Thriller.” We grew up with the Hammer Films from the 50s and 60s, and we had so much hope that we would like what was underneath the cover. And we did. We then took this fun thriller and took out a lot of the fun.

VF: Added some depression.

SF: We added depression, and that’s what you see now.

VF: Originally the script was not written for us. It’s hard for a screenwriter – we found out – that he can’t, or she can’t, add what our vision of cinema is. We have to do that ourselves, and add atmosphere, or like… silence.

SF: We had to add atmosphere and silence to a script that’s full of fun dialogue, and that’s really hard to achieve. We worked on that. Sadly for that, the writer was good at writing dialogue, and no one’s going to see it in the movie.

PH: You mentioned that after Goodnight Mommy that you kept getting all these offers. And I had read online that you kept getting all these offers from America, but that you didn’t want to leave Austria. So what made you want to make your next feature in the English language, and also shot in Canada?

SF: I think we’re curious people in a way. When we got a script that we were interested in, we felt, okay, why not? I mean, even Goodnight Mommy was a weird, or big decision for us, a big film for us to take on because we had only done one small documentary. Lots of people back then said, “We can’t finance this film, those two people have no idea. Why should they know how to make a horror film?” We felt if we were interested in something and just kept doing the work, then it’s going to work out. The same with this here. We were interested in the story and didn’t see the whole mountain of problems or obstacles. We just said this might be interesting, let’s just start walking and see how far we get.

PH: I’m so glad that you decided to do it. Veronika, I read that Severin used to babysit for your children back in the day. What was it about the horror genre that made you guys want to make movies together?

VF: I think it didn’t start in horror. It started among other films, with Friday the 13th part VIII but it also started with John Cassavetes, to tell you the truth. We kind of started when he worked as a babysitter. Maybe you have read this. I didn’t pay him with money, but with VHS cassettes we rented from video stores in Vienna. So we started watching movies together, and we found out that we kind of liked the same movies. Or we found the same movies good. And it’s not only horror movies. There are also art movies we kind of like. It was never a plan to work together. We started as a friendship between two people who, when it comes to age, are different. Almost different generations.

SF: But we don’t both really think of it like that, or don’t really care about age. So neither of us does. And we like the same movies, and we found out that we could work together well. The movies we take on are always just a mix of what’s interesting to us. We never try to just say we only do horror or we only do this or that. We do whatever seems interesting. However, what you said about horror being interesting to us, I think the answer is that you can’t really talk about the pieces in our modern-day society, in our modern-day world, in the way that people will still want to listen to you, or want to watch the thing. So like all the topics The Lodge is dealing with, I think if it were any other type of movie, people would run away from it because if it’s a film of trauma, and greed and depression and mental health issues, and whatever, I think people would run away. But if it’s a horror film, hopefully, they will watch it, and they will start asking questions.

PH: What are you guys currently working on right now?

SF: Right now actually, it comes back full circle because the film that we couldn’t finance after Goodnight Mommy, that we wanted to do, the period piece. The Austrian one. It’s actually financed now and we’re going to shoot it this summer. It’s called The Devil’s Bath, and it’s again dealing with depression, and very dark.

VF: It’s set in an isolated house in the woods.

PH: Hey, if it works!

SF: There are many other projects that we are working on right now. There’s one that’s a horror movie that we’re writing in April and March. There are two thrillers that British writers are writing for us right now. So actually, there is a lot going on and we hope that not so much time will go by until you see the next one.

PH: How exciting! I just have one last question for both of you, and that is what is your favorite scary movie?

SF: That’s the hardest question because we love horror movies so much, and there’s so many that it’s impossible to answer. I’ll answer differently than most of the time because there are many films that there are so many right answers.  Today I feel like it’s a The Thing day, the John Carpenter version of it. I feel this is one of the great, old-time horror movies. It’s one of the coldest films in a way, and it’s also related to The Lodge, although it’s like a masterpiece, it’s related to The Lodge because you never know who the monster is. The thing could be in everyone, and that makes it so scary. Everyone can be the monster, and I think that’s what’s connected to The Lodge, where we’re all the monsters or no one. We’re just human beings.

VF: I would answer with a 60s movie, Otto Preminger, who was Austrian actually, and he made this film, Bunny Lake is Missing, where the child disappears and you don’t know where it is, or what happens until the very end. It has the most devastating scene at the end when you find out what it’s all about. It takes place on a swing, so if you haven’t seen it, please check it out.

A huge thank you to Veronika and Severin for speaking with us. Be sure to check out The Lodge, in theaters now.