Tilman Singer’s LUZ (2018) remains one of my favourite first features. Dripping with style, and not afraid to delve into horror of both the cosmic and body varieties, it cemented a place in my rewatch pile and became a personal classic. It’s narratively opaque, but that’s often a particular button to push when it comes to horror for me, because I love a little disorientation in my spook-a-doodles. So when Singer got a bigger budget for his next project, bringing with it the caliber of actor embodied by Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens, I couldn’t wait to see the outcome.
Gretchen (Schafer)is sent to live with her distant father (Marton Csokas), his wife (Jessica Henwick), and their non-verbal daughter Alma (Mila Lieu) after some difficulties at home in America. We meet the family as they’re en route to a resort in the mountains of Germany, run by family friend Mr. König (Dan Stevens) for whom Gretchen’s father and stepmother are developing a new hotel. But things aren’t so relaxing at the picturesque Alpine retreat. Gretchen and her stepsister are plagued by seizures that seem to make time skip, on repeat. Women at the resort seem to constantly be sick and vomiting. There’s also the persistent threat of a mysterious and relentless blonde woman with a shrill, ear-splitting warble who is pursuing Gretchen, and multiple times cause her to suffer terrible injuries including a head wound and a broken arm. But only Gretchen and a handful of side characters can see or be affected by this assailant, and it increasingly feels as though Gretchen is the one that’s cuckoo, especially when the woman’s scream seems to cause the time looping.
Adding to the disorientation afoot in Cuckoo is that while the setting sometimes feels modern – the telltale smartphone is present – but also in the recent past of answering machines, analog tape, and gaudy decor. It’s all part of a pastiche of elements that are in place to confuse and disarm as the film’s antagonists sneak around, conducting their ominous business. Cinematography is beautiful and often clean, but smash cuts to vibrating vocal cords or other grisly imagery remind you that Singer is here to mess with your mind, not engage in mindfulness.
Hunter Schafer is, as always, radiant and falls into the role of Gretchen like she’s lived there for years. A role in a movie as crazy as this could easily become a series of performative oneuppances (shut up, autocorrect, that’s totally a word) as the weirdness ramps up, but Schaefer remains restrained and is able to fully embrace scenes of introspection and quiet rage even as things become weird around her. This is a critical balance because the audience needs an avatar capable of asking, for better or worse, ‘what the fuck’ when the world gets really twisted. Gretchen’s confounded but determined pursuit of the truth behind her pursuer and König is motivating to the audience too, egging us on to see this thing through to the end.
Dan Stevens, perhaps Hollywood’s foremost chameleon, steps out of the Hawaiian shirt and Australian accent of Godzilla x Kong and into a jumpsuit and a German one (his second role after I’m Your Man). He’s not your typical villain, because there’s no such thing as typical when Stevens wears the metaphorical black hat in a film, but he always brings a particularly sus energy and that’s no different here. Stevens’ König feels like a classic horror villain, doting but deeply sinister and possessing a particular ugliness that bears itself out by the film’s climax.
I’ve seen a lot of reviews and impressions of Cuckoo that suggest that it’s too opaque or that too many things are unexplained. To me, these assessments are kind of absurd, especially in the context of Singer’s prior film which is, by comparison, far more complicated to decode, if such a thing is even needed. The cuckoo (bird) connection is explicit (and is outright part of the text of the film) as in nature the bird will abandon it’s eggs for other birds to raise, much like Gretchen experiences. As a vehicle and metaphor for a particular sort of reproductive freedom, it feels both coherent and powerful to me. The actual meat of what is happening with König and at the resort’s curiously-affiliated medical facility is hinted at rather than fully fleshed out, but that’s okay. I can’t think of a circumstance where a more fulsome explanation would improve the film. It would certainly slide Cuckoo into science-fiction territory and away from horror, and no one wants that.
Which is why I can easily dismiss criticisms of Cuckoo being lacking in the logic department. It’s a movie that is built to gaslight you in the most fun way possible, setting you up for a pretty wild climax. It lets you know that it is you, viewer, who is crazy, and that the weird stuff you’re watching is certainly weird for it’s own sake and not in service of, say, a message about the autonomy of children or women, or a showcase for Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens’ incredible range as actors, or just the particular value of a switchblade. No, it’s definitely not any of those. Maybe you’re the cuckoo now.
Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo made it’s Canadian Premiere at the Fantasia Festival on July 30. A theatrical release is scheduled for August 9. For all our Fantasia coverage, watch this space!