Directed By Tilman Singer

Starring – Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Jessica Henwick

The Plot – Reluctantly, 17-year-old Gretchen (Schafer) leaves her American home to live with her father (Martin Csokas), 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, her father’s boss (Stevens), who takes an inexplicable interest in Gretchen’s mute half-sister Alma (Mila Liu). 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.

Rated R for violence, bloody images, adult language and brief teen drug use.

CUCKOO – Official Trailer (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

More often in horror than any other genre, hyperbole has a way of raising the expectation level of its audience to unfair heights that no film could ever possibly reach, but ‘Cuckoo’, and in particularly Tilman Singer, live up to all of the hype with one of the strangest and most deranged horror films that I have seen in recent memory. From a directorial standpoint, Singer is decades ahead of his minimal experience, harvesting not only an effortlessly eerie and uncomfortable atmosphere that serves our conflicted protagonist well, but also several legitimately crafted frights in pay-offs, with such a rich versatility in how they’re uniquely manufactured. Singer’s strongest quality is definitely in the depths of his detailed sound designs, with so much intricacy in his usage of bird noises and unnatural shrieks that simultaneously force his audience to tremble in anticipation, while also wincing at the terrifying volume levels meant to add to the unnerving presence of one particular character who is anything other than natural. The other half of the frights lends itself to the immaculate editing, which paints a dysphoric sense of reality to what characters may or may not be experiencing. During the first few minutes of the film, lines of dialogue were repeating in ways that made me think the film might be skipping, but it’s an intentionally meaningful touch that plays vividly towards the beats of the storytelling, all the while driving up the tension and vulnerability of a sequence that constantly feels like it’s breaking the fourth wall, in order to deliver something psychologically grueling for audiences to endure. On top of this, Singer and cinematographer Paul Faltz pitch a transfixing beauty in establishing the ambiance in atmosphere that feel so uniquely vital to the integrity of the experience, with long, lingering shots from a peeking outsiders angle that not only gives off the impression of Gretchen’s overwhelming loneliness, but also puts audiences in the perspective of a voyeur with an unearned advantage into such a tender family environment. In that dynamic, the script has a clever way of marrying the vulnerabilities of a newly-assembled step family with the awkward disposition of being a foreigner in a new land, which creates such a dreaded disposition for Gretchen with nowhere or nobody to turn to. As someone who experienced this first hand, I can confidently say that Singer as a screenwriter accurately captures that lingering discontent that comes from resentment of either a mother or father moving on from their previous marriage, and while the arc is a valued asset to the direction of the film and where it ultimately parallels that of the movie’s big reveals, it’s channeled in subliminal ways amongst the body language of its characters that says so much without literally saying anything at all, inscribing an isolation factor that naturally allows us to invest in Gretchen’s character, despite her making the occasionally rude or selfish decisions that teenagers are typically known for. That isn’t to say that I had a problem with the way the character is presented, but rather applaud Singer for making her feel so grounded in reality with the corresponding grief that she’s experiencing from an untimely loss. This transitions well to the performances, which are among the movie’s strongest qualities, particularly Shafer and Stevens, who are equally mesmerizing for entirely different reasons. This is Hunter Shafer’s first leading role, and it’s clear she has a gravitas for painting vulnerability, both in the frail trembles of her communicative body language, but also in the emotional complexity of her facial registries, making us feel every bit of the terrifying uneasiness that plagues her newfound surroundings, all the while enacting a role that is every bit as physically demanding as what she experiences weekly on HBO’s popular show ‘Euphoria’. As for Stevens, he’s had quite the resurgence this year in show-stealing turns in ‘Godzilla Vs Kong’ and ‘Abigail’, but his work here easily takes the cake, outlining another impactful antagonist that comes so effortlessly to a man with so much charisma. That affability balances a creepy demeanor that really makes your skin crawl, each time his character moseys into frame, where it’s just as easy to fall for his devilish charms as it is dangerous to end up on the wrong side of his composure, that is every bit ruthlessly unforgiving as it is dangerously sacrificial. Stevens dons a German accent so well that I would legitimately think he was born there, if I didn’t already know so much about him, affording him a career that has allowed him to disappear seamlessly into the depths of the characters that he portrays, with this being his evilest to date in a career filled with seedily slimy characters. Lastly, despite signs that should’ve been obvious, I wasn’t able to accurately predict where the dimensions of the plot were heading, resulting in an easy 97 minutes of storytelling that grew more compelling, the further the realities became uncovered. In fact, every single scene in the movie plays accordingly to the direction that the film is headed, and while some of them individually might feel spontaneously excessive in the heat of the moment, when the complete puzzle is put together, the pieces converge seamlessly, giving us not only ample world-building in the objective of its mission, but also tremendous replay value from secondary watches that will definitely elicit aspects that we weren’t initially privy to.

NEGATIVES

While I often appreciate a film that will leave certain subplots or aspects unresolved, to reflect life’s inconsistencies, a couple aspects to this script come with unfortunate consequences, leaving a bit of the wind taken aback from ‘Cuckoo’s’ riveting climax. Firstly, while I can understand and accurately interpret the who, what, and where of the mysterious conflict, the why feels a bit underdeveloped, especially an intentioned language barrier aspect that it uses as justification. Like most horror films, the explanation can feel as simple as psychotic people doing psychotic things, but that’s just not good enough for me, as the antagonist puts a lot into something with little financial or sentimental gain from such a mission, serving as the catalyst for more things that go unresolved, the longer you think about how any of this operation is even possible. Beyond this, my only other issue with the film also pertained to unresolved arcs, primarily one involving Gretchen’s parents, which are never further elaborated on after them reaching the proverbial point of no return. It’s difficult to talk about without spoiling details, but their characters are shown before one key action, then never shown again, and while this could allude to the fact that they maybe didn’t make it out alive, we will never truly know, as they’re never further elaborated on, resulting in some unresolved questions to my engagement that definitely needed closure with some of the uncertainties to where the movie leaves us.

OVERALL
‘Cuckoo’ is a wildly weird and atmospherically unsettling breakthrough for Tilman Singer, who vividly paints familial disconnect in the confines of an isolated resort where not everything is as it seems. Though the film leaves a bit more ambiguity to its finished product than I would’ve expected or preferred, its bizarre bodily horror enacts a chilling good time made irresistible by the magnetic charms of Schafer and Stevens, allowing it to fly higher than even the heights of hyperbole can reach.

My Grade: 8/10 or A-