Cuckoo is one of the most WTF movies you will see this year. And it’s astounding. Not just because of the wild moments, but because of how we get there. As the saying goes, it’s not always about the destination, it’s about the journey. The way Tilman Singer weaves this tale is incredible. It is intentionally paced and reserved, until it’s not. And then it goes completely nuts in a matter of moments.
But let’s back up. As the story starts, Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) has just arrived in Germany to live with her father (Marton Csokas), her stepmother Beth (Jessica Henwick) and her mute half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu). Her mother has recently passed away and Gretchen is feeling untethered. She has lost the person closest to her, left everything she knows behind, and is now in another country with a family that she feels tenuously connected to, at best.
Her father and stepmother have been hired by wealthy developer Herr König (Dan Stevens) to redesign and update his Bavarian Alps resort. They will be staying at a house on the large property, and when they arrive, König even offers Gretchen a job at the front desk. While not the most exciting or glamorous job, it’s an opportunity to get some space from the family and earn some cash, so Gretchen immediately accepts. For unknown reasons though, König insists that Gretchen lock up and leave promptly by 10:00 each night. But the early curfew doesn’t prevent her from observing some weird things going down at the resort. A few nights in, she comes across a strange woman vomiting in the lobby. Alma suddenly begins to suffer from strange seizures. And, then, a frightening figure appears on the grounds and chases Gretchen through the woods.
There is something very disturbing going on in this story, and Singer inches toward it with a steady and unnerving pace. If you are a fan of his 2018 film Luz, you will appreciate the way he exercises the same level of patience in allowing this story to unfold in its own time. Here though, he gets to play in a bigger world and explore some larger concepts. All of the pieces of this story are released over the course of the film, but it’s hard to put any of them together in a way that fully makes sense, until the finale. It’s like a nightmare that you can’t fully remember when you wake up.
Shafer fully embraces Gretchen and everything that she is feeling. The frustration, the loss, the feeling of being hopelessly adrift, it’s all there. She is dealing with a lot (even before things get creepy) and through it all, she is very alone. Her family does little to bridge the gap and it’s so easy to feel her anger as she tries to understand what is going on around her. Dan Stevens is the perfect dynamite to add to this powderkeg in his portrayal of König. This gentleman is just a little bit odd, very accommodating and unnecessarily protective of Gretchen, whom he barely knows. And Stevens plays it all excellently. He’s a bit sinister, but it’s never obvious. It lingers just below the surface, but you know there’s something about this guy that can’t be trusted.
Atmosphere is really important in this film. We are presented with this beautiful, mountain setting. It’s picturesque and looks like the kind of place where nothing bad could ever happen. And then it takes that setting and injects something horrific that remains largely unseen. Again, there’s a lot going on here, but it doesn’t fully come together until the end, so for much of the film, these seemingly ideal mountains hold something frightening that remains hidden in the shadows. We can’t trust what is in front of us and it gives the entire film a feeling of uncertainty.
At the heart of this film is a story about family and what binds us together. Is it blood? Is it our own internal connections? Is it how we look at and consider those around us? Or is it something else? It’s difficult to talk about this film without giving away too much, but if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary, this will definitely be for you. Cuckoo is a very original film that offers suspense, terror and complete madness in a beautiful, 2-hour package.
Movie Score: 5/5
Emily von Seele hails from Seattle, where it rains a lot, which gives her plenty of excuses to stay inside and watch movies. She has written for Bloody Disgusting, Daily Dead, the Women in Horror Annual and Grim Magazine, and is co-host of the Dead Ringers podcast. You can usually catch Emily on Twitter (@horrorellablog), where she has been known to gab excessively about movies and tweet adorable pics of her two cats - seriously, they are the cutest ever.
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