Cuckoo (2024)

Score: 4 / 5

As its title indicates, this off-the-wall horror title will be talked about for some time to come. Marketing for this -- and for Longlegs, earlier this summer -- managed to keep most of its plot and theming under pretty tight wraps, and both films are better for it. Some things just need to be walked into with minimal knowledge of the experience to come. And Cuckoo is bonkers.

17-year-old Gretchen (a physically committed Hunter Schafer, from Euphoria and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) gets dragged along by her father to a resort in the Bavarian Alps. That in itself wouldn't be too bad, but she's still grieving the death of her mother, so caring for her mute younger sister under the watchful eye of her new stepmother isn't helping her heal. And the somewhat haunted forest ringed by icy mountains, while beautiful, Gretchen views with a somewhat suspicious eye, as if they too are watching her, hemming her in, trapping her. She takes a risk right away to work in the resort's convenience store, and she's the first to notice that the locals are strange. Really strange. Like, young women keep vomiting and being hustled away.

But nobody seems to pay her much mind or care about her concerns. Not even when she's chased by a hooded woman keeping up with her on a nighttime bike ride in one of the film's most chilling scenes. Only Ed, an alluring young woman, sparks much interest in Gretchen, and the two discreetly plan to run away together. It's a wonderfully understated queer element in the film, and while it isn't part of the "bury your gays" trope, it does get abbreviated by another sequence of pure terror involving what seems to be a time loop and a violent car crash. Even when the detective gets called in -- he hypothesizes that the hooded woman is responsible for at least one death already, and her M.O. is something possibly supernatural or technological -- there are too many unknowns and too many weird things going on for Gretchen (or us) to have much grasp on her present danger.

Writer and director Tilman Singer has only made one feature film before Cuckoo (Lux, in 2018, which I haven't yet seen), but he's got a fascinating approach to this weird material. I'm using the word "weird" a lot, and I don't necessarily mean in an alienating, popular sense; rather, this fits into the domain of "weird fiction," a curious and inviting blend of science fiction and horror and character drama (read: insanity and the uncanny). Singer slows down our expectations -- though this isn't, strictly, slow-burn horror -- by letting us dwell with Gretchen in her strange new world and its shadowy horrors. He doesn't give us answers for a long time, letting the twisted mystery get darker and uglier to the point that I occasionally found myself distracted from watching the movie by simply trying to make sense of its bizarre edits, nerve-wracking sounds, and generally menacing aura. Eventually we do get a rather ham-fisted explanation of everything, and while I appreciated it for helping streamline things (I'm rarely invested in plot enough for that to make or break a film, to the point of sometimes seeking out spoilers in advance of a screening), I expect it will be frowned upon by most audiences. That kind of final act, "come to Jesus" revelation tying together disparate elements worked when Hitchcock made Psycho sixty years ago, but it fell out of favor shortly after.

He is, however, clearly an actor's director as much as he is a fresh storyteller. Schafer leans into the possibility that Gretchen's observations and concerns might be all in her head, a manifestation of her discomfort with her family and their new home while still dealing with her own bereavement. Opposite her is Dan Stevens as the delightful and sinister Herr Konig (with a pitch-perfect accent), doing the most with his performance in a way that wildly unbalances Schafer's performance style. The combination is intoxicating to watch. His slick, obsequious mannerisms in running the hotel quickly evolve into passive-aggressive control, micromanaging specifically female workers and guests alike. Stevens is always charming, and he uses that trait here like a honey to lure the other characters -- and us -- into a sense of unease before we realize the extent of his cruel machinations.

There is really no comparing this with Longlegs, which was also notably mysterious and strange in its marketing, but I did enjoy this one better, if only because it felt more fun. Schafer and Stevens have an almost comic dynamic, with Stevens's strangeness highlighting Schafer's deadpan straight man. Even the title and its meaning -- revealed to be, indeed, avian in theme -- suggest an unhinged wackadoodle energy Singer clearly enjoys exploiting. There's even the suggestion in the film of a sort of dark folktale about women's bodies and wills being hijacked by powerful men, but it's so satisfying understated that this doesn't feel overtly like an "issue" movie. It just wants to take you on a unique ride, have a blast, and talk about it after with your friends.