YMMV / The Lodge

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Did Aidan really feel bad about Grady dying, or was he only pretending to for his sisters benefit?
  • Does Grace realize the truth at least partially after shooting Richard? If so is she only trying to make the kids sweat in the final scene, or really planning to kill them (along with herself) out of revenge?
• Moral Event Horizon: A huge chunk of the audience believed the children crossed it when it's revealed that they were gaslighting Grace throughout their entire stay in the lodge, while stealing her medication and possibly drugging her, and then letting her dog outside to freeze to death (albeit unintentionally). Many audience goers have come away believing the children to be more evil than Damien Thorn and that their fates in the end was a case of Catharsis Factor at work.
• Nightmare Fuel: The premise of two children gaslighting a kind woman, suffering from PTSD due to being a cult survivor, into madness, self-harm, and murder-suicide, all because they thought it was her fault their mother died due to her cult ties. While she killed herself after Richard told her he was going to marry Grace, it wasn't Grace's fault that the mother committed suicide; the children's hatred is ultimately misplaced, and an innocent woman suffers heavily for it.
• The Scrappy: Aiden and Mia ended up being widely reviled by audiences for their actions that gaslit Grace and sent her over the edge and the general stupidity of their scheme, but Aiden especially so since he shows far less sincere guilt and remorse for what he does, and as the older of the two siblings is expected to have known better than to be so childishly cruel and stupid as he ended up acting throughout the entire ordeal.
• The Woobie: Poor Grace. She had an extremely traumatic childhood, and though she's somewhat fragile, she's good-hearted and genuinely makes an effort to connect with the children, who rebuff her. She then becomes a victim to Aidan and Mia's gaslighting activities, having her food and medication stolen, tricked into believing that she and the children are stuck in purgatory, being forced to walk into a blizzard to look for help while reliving her trauma with the cult, and then find her beloved pet dog frozen to death. By the time Aidan and Mia tries to confess to their cruelty out of guilt, it proves to be far too late as Grace's mind had already reverted back to resuming her cult's teachings, and ends up killing Richard, and presumably the children and herself, in a murder-suicide.