Cuckoo (Theaters)
This Hunter Schafer/Dan Stevens horror-thriller starts strong but careens off the tracks
What’s it about? A 17-year-old girl is forced to move with her family to a resort where things are not what they seem.
Who it’s for? Fans of Hunter Schafer, if you love atmospheric “Euro” horror, if you know you have a predilection for cult films, Dan Stevens admirers, Midnight Movie fans
Who should avoid? Horror-sensitive viewers, If you care about plot logic, fans of more traditional horror, those seeking more emotional depth
Watch if you like: Rosemary’s Baby, Suspiria, Euphoria, Get Out, David Cronenberg movies
News and Notes:
Premiered at Berlinale 2024
Released today
On-the-ground Schmear (Press Screening at Berlinale): Multiple walkouts, audience-members throwing up their hands and audibly tsking, no applause, supreme befuddlement following the screening
Schmear’s Verdict:
Despite Hunter Schafer's compelling performance and Dan Stevens' scene-stealing, "Cuckoo" squanders its imaginative potential with poor execution, resulting in a disjointed and ultimately incoherent horror thriller that will leave you frustrated and longing for clarity.
This review originally posted in February from Berlinale
With the new Hunter Schafer-starring Neon horror thriller Cuckoo, outsized imagination gets undercut by shoddy execution. And with everything to admire and the fun to be had through two raucous acts, the wheels eventually come off, and Cuckoo careens into a stuporous crash.
The film follows Gretchen (Schafer), an 18-year-old forced by her father and stepmother to stay at a rickety hotel in the Bavarian Alps. Darkly twisted, often avian, occurrences begin to befall Gretchen. Operating the hotel is creepy, touchy, Herr König—a hysterically game Dan Stevens.
Stevens steals the show with his deranged line readings, perfectly icky German, and instantly funny visual appearance. He blows delicately on a little Willy Wonka flute to ensure his nefarious bidding is done.
To writer/director Tilman Singer’s (Luz) credit, Cuckoo nails the tricky horror film ephemera that is so critical, including world-building, style, and tone. The plot develops slowly but with a sense of commitment, setting itself up to be a conspiracy of gaslighting a la Rosemary’s Baby or Get Out.
But, sporadically at first, then very often, the plot jumps and jilts unnaturally. Characters pop in and out of the story randomly. I initially passed this off as a purposefully jagged feeling. Eventually, it became tenuous and unbearable.
As wild as this film is, I promise you that it could’ve been crazier, funnier, and scarier. A very tired “dead mom” trope (with the extremely cliched voicemail/answering machine conceit) fails to establish any emotional resonance.
The denouement, of which there are two, proves to be complete hogwash. It all comes spewing out—not confusing per se, but completely overstuffed. Cuckoo could’ve easily been streamlined. A character removed here, a plot simplification there—instead, it plummets under its own weight.
By the final act, I felt certain that Hunter Schafer deserved more than this malarkey. And as I witnessed multiple walkouts in the theater, I was physically stressed out. Not by the horror, but by how absolutely nonsensical Cuckoo was.
The film has imagination in spades, credit to Singer there, but I left Cuckoo wishing it was based off a book. The movie needed a clearer, more proper roadmap. As it stands, it’s interminable and illegible.
But with a young hot star, a bankable genre, and a sexy Neon release, don’t be surprised if the youth turn this into the next midnight cult classic. They can certainly try, but I won’t be checking back into this hotel.