‘Cuckoo’ Movie Review: Tilman Singer’s Scattershot Horror Mystery
Photo from Neon
From Jeff Nelson
Tilman Singer made his feature debut with 2018’s Luz, which delights itself in its demonic oddities. He returns with another horror mystery in Cuckoo – a more accessible film that isn’t entirely sure what it aims to achieve. It finds success in pockets, capitalized on by an outstanding cast, but it’s a fractured film that doesn’t make a cohesive whole.
Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) is a 17-year-old girl who is forced to move with her father (Marton Csokas), stepmother (Jessica Henwick), and stepsister, Alma (Mila Lieu) to a family resort in the German Alps. She misses her mother, her old home, and her close friends in America, but she’s stuck in the scenic location while her parents build a new resort with the eccentric Herr König (Dan Stevens). Strange noises and bloody visions are only the beginning of the local dark secrets threatening her family.
Cuckoo situates itself within Gretchen’s teenage angst, leaning on it through each segment of her journey. It’s played for drama, comedy, and horror, thwarting her adolescence into an unfamiliar world. She recognizes that something feels odd about her new home, and desperately wants to return to America. A mysterious hooded woman wearing sunglasses stalks her with sinister intentions, while strange sounds come from the distance that distort Gretchen’s world.
Singer’s screenplay lines its horror with dark comedy, primarily explored through Gretchen’s disbelief in her family’s inability to recognize the increasingly odd sequence of events and her awkward interactions with Herr. However, that’s all essentially a cloak layered on a family drama at the story’s core. Gretchen and Alma’s sisterhood aims for an emotional impact, but there aren’t enough scenes between them to land an affecting dynamic.
Cuckoo leads with mystery over horror, highlighting the film’s only legitimately scary moment in the trailer where the hooded woman chases a bike-riding Gretchen late at night. The fear surrounding the antagonist evaporates tragically fast, while the teenager is forced to investigate the strange ongoings before they get ahold of her first. This reproductive horror story’s loopy reveals are intriguing, although they don’t push the envelope far enough. The final showdown ends with a whimper to an otherwise bonkers concept.
Schafer magnificently captures Gretchen’s teen angst, walking the line between horror, comedy, and drama with ease. She proves herself a multi-faceted performer with the ability to carry a character’s nuances. It’s enjoyable watching Stevens play unhinged roles, and his performance as Herr in Cuckoo is no exception. His endless charm and twisted sense of humor feed into Singer’s tone to utter perfection.
Cuckoo isn’t really sure what it wants to be, bending itself in multiple ways that feel inorganic and forced. Singer’s commitment to swinging for the fences and taking chances with his filmmaking is commendable, but the whole is an uneven genre-bender. It just isn’t scary, funny, or dramatically impactful. Schafer and Stevens put in tremendous work and the story’s unconventional twists are amusing, but it ultimately falls short.
Rating: 2.5/5
Cuckoo hits theaters on August 9th, 2024.
