Cuckoo is so much fun to say. It’s very silly, but also implies something deranged is going on the deeper you think about it. Silly and deranged perfectly encapsulates this film, guaranteed to be playing midnights for years to come at fantastic fests, where hopefully this film comes with cocoa puffs. Ok I’m sorry, I had to get that in there once, now it’s out of my system.
Beth (Jessica Henwick) and Luis (Marton Csokas) are excited to spend more time at the Bavarian hotel where they spent their honeymoon. Their mute daughter Alma (Mila Lieu) seems sorta excited, but Luis’s teenage daughter Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) is sullen, content to drive with the movers instead of her family. Hoping to help, the hotel manager Herr Konig (Dan Stevens) gives Gretchen a job at the front desk…but gives her very specific, ominous instructions about how to lock up at night. And something strange starts to happen to Alma. And, well, you can see more bad stuff starts to happen from there.
Tilman Singer directed Cuckoo: a German man making a German based horror movie. The movie carries that special modern German essence that gives Cuckoo its propulsion. In general the base of this film is pretty tense; Gretchen isn’t in a great headspace when she gets to the hotel, and all the strange, specific requests coupled with increasingly blurred reality sequences really unmoor her and as a result the audience from any comfort they went into the film with. But just as the movie feels like it reaches unbearable levels of tension, Tilman finds a way I’veto insert a literal cuckoo clock that goes off, or a certifiably insane Herr conversation that Gretchen grows more and more incredulous that others around him don’t see the menace in his word choices. For a while, the movie feels like this tightrope of a dark, sick joke, pulping up the story in that way you uncomfortably laugh at random times.
I will say though the movie eventually shows its cards with about 30 minutes to go. Either you’ll go where it’s taking you, or you’ll be out. Me? I found the choices Singer made to be the right amount of sinister and ludicrous to fit Cuckoo nicely, including some really clever commentary about the obstacles Gretchen is really up against. In that final act, Schaefer and Stevens really shine too, with Schaefer proving Hollywood’s investment in her in 2024 and Stevens’s hopefully long career playing mysterious weirdos that send chills down your spine with his crazy eyes but also a blush from his brooding hotness.
I love Bavaria, and have had a blast in the various cities in Southern Germany. But thanks to Cuckoo, I’m now gonna have to give some second thoughts to visiting the more remote parts of that part of the country. At least Singer didn’t ruin Oktoberfest for anyone. That’s one event everyone should try to visit once in their lifetimes.