From CCFF '24 - Cuckoo

Cuckoo [2024]
Dir. Tilman Singer
102 min.

Editorial Disclaimer: Coverage of the films screening at the 2024 Chicago Critics Film Festival is limited to publishing capsule reviews at this time. This in accordance with each film's review embargo that may or may not have already been formally lifted prior to its theatrical release. As always, please send any grievances, questions, or concerns you may have to film.froth@gmail.com.

NEON Summary: Reluctantly, 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) leaves her American home to live with her father, who has just moved into a resort in the German Alps with his new family. Arriving at their future residence, they are greeted by Mr. König (Dan Stevens), her father's boss, who takes an inexplicable interest in Gretchen's mute half-sister Alma. Something doesn't seem right in this tranquil vacation paradise. Gretchen is plagued by strange noises and bloody visions until she discovers a shocking secret that also concerns her own family.

Film

From NEON, or what you now might think of as THE hottest American independent film production and distribution company around these days comes Cuckoo, an occasionally nonsensical but still highly effective horror-thriller film worth putting on your watchlist this summer. With a rock-solid turn from Hunter Schafer in the leading role and a zany but still ridiculously fun supporting performance from Dan Stevens, Cuckoo is a something of a fun mess and baffling film to discuss, especially when you're safe-guarding the story's twists and turns. Though at times the story feels needlessly convoluted, the jumps and scares are legit, the editing is crisp, and the slick camera moves are arranged with purpose. Director Tilman Singer clearly has the know-how to drum up some tension maintaining just enough control over the mayhem he's created to prevent things from unraveling beyond salvageable repair. Don't misconstrue my wishy-washy critiques for outright derision – my backhanded compliments are sincere and come from a place of whole-hearted endorsement for this film.

while most of the plot details are relatively spoiler-proof by design, I'm going to be intentionally vague just to preserve the mysteries and keep the reveals under wraps. In the wake of her mother's death, seventeen-year-old Gretchen (Schafer) has reluctantly relocated to an eerily remote resort on the side of a German mountain with her father, her stepmother, and her mute seven-year-old stepsister. They're welcomed by the exceedingly eccentric and excessively rich Mr. Herr König (Stevens), who apparently owns the resort, the local hospital, and seems to have control and oversight over the goings-on in the town (some might say too much control and oversight). Still dealing with her own unresolved grief and yearning to return stateside, Gretchen accepts a position offered by König at the resort to earn some extra cash (to save up for the chance to fly home). For reasons unexplained, König insists Gretchen doesn't work the nightshift... a warning that immediately disregards because of course should would, she's an angsty teenager. Almost immediately she starts to notice peculiar behavior from her stepsister and the patrons at the resort. Gretchen herself begins experiencing disorienting and repetitive visions full of ear-splitting screeching noises and unnerving images.... and as Gretchen dives deeper into the mysteries around her, of which directly concern her own family, terrible things begin happening and she realizes that danger is all around her.

Put plainly, Cuckoo worked best when it honed in on manufacturing creepy vibes and top-notch scares and shied away from all its heady technicalities. Like so many other horror thrillers, there's a seemingly inherent insistence to chop up the details and toss them into a a soggy exposition salad in the third act just to make sure everyone is clear on the mechanics of what is happening. Whenever the film teetered into that sort of over-explanation, I could feel my attention span shortening and my investment waning. On the flip side, whenever Singer threw narrative caution to the wind and simply leaned into his strengths as a filmmaker, I really liked the game he was pitching. Where his screenplay lacks discipline in trimming unnecessary yada-yada genre machinations, his savvy instincts as a director are apparent. Elsewhere, there's plenty to get excited about. From a craft perspective, the reverberating editing and deafening sound design are particularly inspired and are crucial to the film's look and feel. Moreover, the complimentary performances from a steadfast-Schafer and an idiosyncratic-Stevens are fully realized and calibrated to balance one another out from start to finish.

All things considered, Cuckoo delivers a bit more sizzle than steak – despite its lackluster high-concept genre story, the filmmaking is impressive enough to overcome its "trying-to-be-smart but dumber-than-it-realizes" storytelling choices. While I wasn't won over by the film's overreliance on baked-in trauma commentary and themes (something that plagues a lot of current horror films), I did think its fluid genre components blended together nicely, namely the cohesion of its nerve-racking supernatural suspense and gnarly body horror violence. There's a lot to like here for fans of the horror genre but probably a lot less to write home about for the casuals out there. I wouldn't necessarily say that the endgame payoffs in Cuckoo cover the whole tab here, but in horror filmmaking, any sort of satisfying third-act closure is really just a cherry on the sundae, right? Even still, Singer does manage to hold it all together, a credit to his stylish and inventive filmmaking flourishes.

Cuckoo is scheduled for a wider theatrical release in the United States starting on August 2, 2024.