Cuckoo follows teenager Gretchen (Schaffer) and her family as they move to the German Alps to help build a resort. They are greeted by Herr König (Stevens), the owner of the resort who has a massive secret that only Gretchen seems to catch on to. Cuckoo takes a lot of swings and has some good hits in my mind, but I honestly felt so confused by the plot that I immediately had to look it up. Weirdly enough, once I figured it out, it became a very straightforward plot that just takes too many turns.
I was a big fan of the cinematography and sound design of the movie. I’ll try to avoid spoilers the best I can but there are these screeches that cause people to become disoriented and the camera also becomes distorted to match that effect. There are a lot of screams in this movie and I’d be lying if I said they weren’t piercing through my screen.
While I didn’t find some aspects of the movie frightening, one thing that did spook me was the “hooded woman”, (shown in the trailers if you were wondering.) Every time she was on screen, she had me freaked out. Her jerky mannerisms and glowing, piercing red eyes through her sunglasses were haunting, and she made the absolute most of her screen time. The movie is really good at stressful scenes, ripe with tension. The feeling of being stalked hangs over Gretchen and it is only made worse by being gaslit by König and her family.
Dan Stevens is having a great year of being a charming weirdo. Whether its as a criminal in Abigail or the kaiju dentist in Godzilla X Kong. Here he plays the rich resort owner who also doubles as a mastermind of the species that is causing the chaos. He is evil but has such strong charisma with his German accent that it is impossible to not be wrapped around his finger.
Leading a horror is no joke and Hunter Schaffer does a great job being a terrified but strong lead. I know she’s said she hasn’t earned the title of scream queen yet but I think she has the chops to keep adding to her resume. Gretchen is not a unique character by any means: she lost her mom and has to move with her dad new wife and sister. While she likes them, she hates that they had to move away from home. But she goes through a hell of a beating and stays strong throughout the entire film, finding strength in her sister Alma. Her toting the butterfly knife is one of the cooler things a horror movie has done this year.
My problems come from a messy story. At its core, it’s basically Society on a much much smaller scale. However, the movie tries to do a lot more to fluff the story that has mixed success rate. The family dynamic with Gretchen’s family is not very well developed. Unless I missed a line, her parents are written out of the story right before the climax and are not heard from or seen again. Herr König is fascinating but his motivations are never developed in an understandable way. The hooded woman is a fascinating antagonist who has a fascinating backstory that could’ve been developed more and shown more.
The first half of the movie is a bit more straightforward forward even more ambiguous. I almost feel that when everything is explained, the movie devolves into madness.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Cuckoo has its messy moments but it is extremely tense and fun. Dan Stevens and Hunter Schafer are fun and they will be excellent in their future projects. The hooded woman is going to haunt my dreams for a couple nights and the screams will be loud in my ears. Cuckoo is not for everyone but I think it’s a good time.
