Storms do funny things to people. They make decent folks jittery, sinners reflective, and criminals stupid. In Little Bone Lodge, the Scottish Highlands cough up a howler of a night and two bleeding, desperate brothers—Jack (Neil Linpow) and Matty (Harry Cadby)—limp into a remote farmhouse like wolf pups who’ve mistaken a bear cave for a kennel. Inside: Mama (Joely Richardson), a woman who could knit you a scarf and your obituary in the same sitting; Maisy (Sadie Soverall), brittle and bright; and Pa (Roger Ajogbe), a presence that promises solidity—and maybe something else. You can feel the walls leaning in already.
Director Matthias Hoene builds his chamber piece with the confidence of a locksmith: every cut clicks, every shot narrows the gap between prey and predator until you’re not sure which is which. The storm outside is second-billed; the real tempest is the tug-of-war across the kitchen table. Blood, steam, and tea—peak British-Ish anxiety cuisine.
Let’s talk casting, because this little lodge doesn’t work without a matriarch who can flip from maternal to murderous on a comma splice. Joely Richardson is superb—flinty, unblinking, and oddly comforting in the way a well-aimed cleaver might be “comforting.” She plays Mama like a parable your grandmother told you wrong on purpose: soothing cadence, unsettling content. There’s a moment where her eyes go from “let me help you” to “let me help you” and it’s as chilling as the wind chewing on the eaves. It’s darkly funny too—she’s the only hostage-taker who can pull off offering biscuits mid-interrogation without undercutting the threat.
Neil Linpow (who also wrote) gives Jack that exhausted, brittle competence of a man who’s been the responsible disaster his whole life. You can see the calculus behind the eyes: exits, lies, next mistakes. Harry Cadby’s Matty is a skittish fuse—baby brother energy tempered by a sweet, wounded puppy vibe that makes you fear he’ll pee on the rug and detonates the house. Their chemistry is tight and lived-in, all fraternal shorthand and weaponized nostalgia. When they bicker, it’s funny; when they protect each other, it’s moving; when they threaten strangers, it’s convincing. That triangle with Sadie Soverall’s Maisy—equal parts captive and catalyst—gives the film its sparking wire. Soverall threads naiveté and steel with great control; you can never quite tell how much she’s clocking. Spoiler: a lot.
Hoene and cinematographer keep the palette damp and anxious—lamplight like golden bruises, shadows that feel less “absence of light” and more “presence of judgment.” The farmhouse becomes a character: corridors that bottleneck, doors that hesitate, a kitchen whose surfaces are too clean for a place where soup and sin simmer this long. Production design understands that the sharpest objects in any rural home aren’t knives; they’re the secrets people keep in reachable drawers.
Pacing-wise, the film is a tidy, escalating waltz: intrusion, negotiation, revelation, inversion—repeat, but tighter. There’s a confidence in how it parcels information; it’s allergic to exposition dumps. Instead, we get drips of backstory salted atop tense routines: dressing wounds, setting the table, making of all things soup. (There is more dread ladled in that kitchen than in a dozen haunted morgues.) When the script finally turns the cards over—no spoilers—the twist doesn’t feel like a magic trick so much as a grim inevitability: you didn’t miss the clues; you just didn’t want them to be true.
Violence, when it arrives, is intimate, practical, and mean. No operatic splatter, just the awful thunk of reality. Hoene often cuts a beat after impact, trusting our brains to fill in the nastiest bits—which they do, with gusto. The sound design is a stealth MVP: rain rattling like loose change, floorboards confessing, that particular kitchen-knife whisper barely louder than a thought. The score keeps out of the way, nudging rather than bludgeoning, letting the storm and breath do the heavy lifting.
Linpow’s script smuggles in a handful of chewy ideas—about found family vs. made monsters, about the stories we tell to survive, and about the way trauma rewires love into a weapon. Mercifully, it lets the characters argue those themes with choices, not speeches. Jack’s competence curdles into control; Mama’s nurturing curdles into… well, something you wouldn’t put on a PTA flyer. And somewhere in there, the film is very, very funny in that dry, “oh no, I shouldn’t be laughing” way. A line about “house rules” lands like a guillotine gag. A polite request to “wipe your feet” becomes threat, ritual, and punchline. The movie understands that gallows humor isn’t a seasoning—it’s survival’s sidekick.
If there’s a quibble, it’s that a couple of late-game conveniences arrive wearing neon wristbands that say “Plot.” A cop’s timing, an antagonist’s durability—genre comforts you can either accept like free peanuts or grumble about between handfuls. For me, the velocity is persuasive enough that I munched happily. Besides, the film repays that indulgence with a final stretch that’s both bleak and, against all odds, weirdly tender. The last exchange between certain parties lands with a thud in the gut and a smirk at the lips—like being hugged by barbed wire.
Performance notes, rapid-fire: Clifford Samuel’s PC Adams has just the right “I’ve seen worse, but I don’t want to see this” energy. Cameron Jack shows up with trouble stitched into his posture. Roger Ajogbe’s Pa is used sparingly and effectively; a quiet mass in the corner of the frame that changes a room’s gravity. The ensemble never feels like archetypes ticking boxes; they feel like people whose boxes have been taped shut for years and are now popping open in the rain.
What elevates Little Bone Lodge above a hundred home-invasion also-rans is its patience and its tone. It’s tense without being sweaty, clever without nudging you in the ribs, and cruel without being cynical. The dark humor blooms from character, not snark; nobody gets quippy while bleeding out. And it never forgets that the scariest thing in a locked house isn’t the stranger—it’s the history. Doors keep weather out. They’re less effective against secrets.
In a healthier theatrical ecosystem, this would be the kind of mid-budget, actor-driven thriller you stumble into on a rainy afternoon and then text five friends about with “trust me” and a skull emoji. As is, wherever you find it, bring a blanket and a tolerance for kitchen anxiety. You’ll get 90-ish minutes of old-fashioned suspense, a matriarch to fear and admire, and a reminder that storms don’t just knock out power; they flip it on in places you’ve tried very hard to keep dark.
Verdict: Come for Joely Richardson’s iron-grip performance, stay for the twisty, tea-hot, storm-lashed nastiness. Little Bone Lodge is a snug little nightmare that proves, once again, if you’re a criminal fleeing in bad weather, maybe skip the first farmhouse with a welcoming porch light. That glow isn’t hospitality; it’s a heat lamp. And you, darling, are the rotisserie.
