Creepy 2020 psychological horror film The Lodge sports an ending likely to knock many viewers to the ground, and here’s what it all really means. Most horror fans can dig a good, fun fright flick every now and then, complete with jump scares, loud sounds, and comic relief. There’s nothing wrong with that style, but sometimes what a particular fan wants to see is much darker, creepier, and emotionally upsetting. For that kind of horror fan, something like The Lodge, directed by the duo of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, is perfect – and the twist ending is a key reason why.

The 2019 horror movie The Lodge is unrelentingly downbeat and bleak, spends lots of time dealing with the real-life monster that is grief, and never misses a chance to twist the knife just a bit deeper into both the characters and the audience. It’s an exercise in tension and (sometimes) confusion, but for those who dig horror that messes with the mind, that’s exactly what the film should be doing. The Lodge at times appears to be going one way with its story, only to throw a surprise into the mix. Here’s a rundown of what really happened to Grace at the end of The Lodge, and what was simply mental trickery.

What Happens At The End Of The Lodge

Grace’s Sanity Unravels

As The Lodge reaches its chilling ending, Grace (Riley Keough) fully succumbs to the psychological torment inflicted by Aidan (Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Lia McHugh). The siblings, still grieving their mother’s suicide, orchestrate an elaborate hoax to convince Grace that they are all ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and trapped in purgatory. They hide her medication, stage their own deaths, and manipulate her into believing that her past trauma – the mᴀss suicide of her cult-like religious community – has come full circle.

Deprived of her antipsycH๏τic medication and relentlessly gaslit, Grace spirals into a delusional state at the end of The Ldoge. As she becomes increasingly convinced that they are all deceased, she reenacts the extreme penance rituals from her childhood, walking barefoot in the snow and burning her possessions in an effort to purify herself. Aidan and Mia, realizing too late that their cruel prank has gone too far, try to reveal the truth – but by then, Grace is completely unmoored from reality.

When Richard (Richard Armitage) finally arrives at the lodge, hoping to end the ordeal, Grace – now fully convinced that they must all embrace death to move on – fatally shoots him. With no grasp on reality left, Grace then sits the terrified children at the dinner table, placing duct tape marked “SIN” over their mouths in a haunting echo of her past cult’s ritualistic suicide. As The Lodge fades to black, the fate of Aidan and Mia is left ambiguous, but Grace’s eerie, calm demeanor suggests that she has already decided how their story must end.

What Really Happened to Grace In The Lodge

How Much Grace Believes Is Left Uncertain

Partway into The Lodge, Grace and her soon-to-be step-children Aidan and Mia, fall asleep in the living room. The next morning, all their belongings are gone, and so is the food supply. The generator powering their phones has also died, and Grace’s dog has disappeared. All appear mystified, until Aidan presents the theory that they all died the night before thanks to a malfunctioning gas heater in the room while they slept. Aidan and Mia are eventually able to convince Grace they’ve all died, and are trapped in purgatory. Grace snaps, and now believes they must all repent in some way to make it to heaven.

Of course, none of that is real. Aidan and Mia orchestrated the entire thing, drugging Grace on that fateful night, and hiding everything in a hidden basement compartment. When Grace finds her ᴅᴇᴀᴅ dog frozen to death in the snow, the kids finally come clean and admit their gaslighting plot against her. They both blame her for their mom’s suicide at the beginning of the film, after their dad left their mom for Grace. Once they learn of her childhood spent in a religious suicide cult, it gives them the inspiration they need to torture her, seemingly hoping that she would breakdown, and their dad wouldn’t want her anymore.

Said dad eventually arrives by the ending of The Lodge, but Grace shoots him, thinking he won’t be hurt since they’re all ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. He’s killed by the sH๏τ, and The Lodge ends with Grace having tied up the children in the manner of those sacrificed in her former cult, with signs pointing to her shooting them and then herself. One aspect that’s left unclear, though, is whether Grace realizes they’re not in purgatory after killing her lover, but is so mad and distraught that she makes the conscious decision to kill the rest of them anyway.

The Real Meaning Of The Lodge Ending

The Horror Movie Has A Lot To Say About Grief

At its core, The Lodge ending is about grief, trauma, and the inescapable cycle of psychological damage. The final moments reinforce the idea that past wounds, when left untreated, can fester into something destructive. Grace, having survived a childhood in a religious death cult, is left permanently scarred by the experience. Though she initially appears functional in the outside world, her trauma has never truly healed. By stripping away her medication, isolating her, and feeding into her deep-seated fears of divine punishment, Aidan and Mia unwittingly recreate the exact conditions that led to her initial breakdown – forcing her to regress into the only reality she has ever known.

The ending of The Lodge also explores the consequences of cruelty disguised as grief. Aidan and Mia believe they are punishing Grace for replacing their mother, but their psychological torment spirals far beyond what they intended. Their prank, designed to make her suffer, ultimately dooms them instead. In the final sequence, when Grace methodically tapes “SIN” over their mouths – a haunting recreation of her cult’s suicide ritual – it becomes clear that she now sees them as part of the cycle of damnation. Whether or not they intended real harm, their actions have placed them in her distorted religious narrative, one where suffering must be atoned for through death.

The Lodge’s bleak ending also suggests a fatalistic view of trauma. Even though Aidan and Mia reveal the truth to Grace, she is too far gone to accept it. The damage is irreversible. This reflects a broader theme in horror – once something is broken, it cannot always be fixed. Grace’s descent into madness is not simply a reaction to their cruelty, but a tragic inevitability brought about by years of unaddressed psychological scars

How The Lodge Ending Was Received

The Slow-Burn Ride To An Explosive Finish Was A Hit

The bleak and ambiguous ending of The Lodge proved divisive among both critics and audiences, with some praising its psychological depth and others frustrated by its nihilistic tone. Many critics recognized the film’s slow-burn horror and shocking conclusion as effective, though unsettling. David Day of Horror Movie Talk described the viewing experience as:

“The mood was mostly sad, and strangely dangerous, with the story constantly dangling danger at the periphery of the audiences vision but never quite letting it come fully into the light. Just when you think you have a good handle on what is going on, the rug is pulled out from under you, which happens several times in The Lodge.”

The praise for the final twist in The Lodge was echoed in many other responses too. For example, in his review for The Guardian, Benjamin Lee had nothing but praise for the plot of The Lodge and its unexpected ending:

“The Lodge is a far more accomplished beast [than director Veronika Franz and Serverin Fiala’s Goodnight Mommy]: poking, prodding and teasing as it throws out potential twists before settling on the most devastating one of all. It’s not an entirely unpredictable revelation but it’s a smart, knowing and nasty way to go, taking the film to a place that’s both staggeringly grim and hopelessly sad.”

However, while praise was mostly positive, some critics and viewers took issue with the way The Lodge ending shifts its focus from the children’s cruelty to Grace’s mental health. Despite this, though, The Lodge has remained a talking point in horror circles, with its ending often cited as one of the most disturbing in recent memory. While some saw it as a masterful exercise in dread, others felt it was too nihilistic to be fully satisfying. Regardless of opinion, it’s an ending that refuses to be easily forgotten.