The title of German director Tilman Singer’s sophomore feature, Cuckoo, comprises a two-tier connotation. On the one hand, it might be synonymous with Singer’s wild imagination, which he showcased in his 2018 debut feature, horror-thriller Luz (2018). Its story about a cab driver who is followed into a police station by a dark entity is far removed from narrative cinema, has unbridled concerns about bastardizing religious prayer, and possesses a bolshie attitude that divides audiences. However, if you know that the Cuckoo bird is a “brood parasite” that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, who raise it believing it to be their offspring at the detriment of its own, you’ll potentially decipher where Singer is headed with this film.
If we take it in its basest form, the title is a fitting description of the director and his films. It also reveals Cuckoo‘s plot, although even in its expositional final act, it is doubtful Singer himself fully understands the story’s finer narrative details.
After her mother’s death, 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) is forced to leave the US and relocate to the Bavarian Alps. There, the strange and eccentric Herr König (Dan Stevens) has hired her estranged father, Luis (Marton Csokas), and stepmother, Beth (Jessica Henwick), to redesign his new resort. Gretchen and her mute half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu) are distant. On the drive to König’s resort, Alpshatten , where the family will temporarily live, Gretchen rides behind with some workers.
When the friendly but creepy König offers Gretchen a job, the strangeness of Alpshatten comes to life. Guests vomit in the reception area, which is apparently normal, and she is stalked at night by a screaming woman. Meanwhile, she encounters a detective who is trying to avenge his wife’s death, who emboldens Gretchen’s suspicions and paranoia.
Cuckoo and Luz are similarly flawed, but each has a unique raw energy. Cuckoo, however, is tamer and more commercially friendly than its predecessor. It’s unsurprising, given that when I spoke with Singer in June 2020, he wanted to pursue a more narrative or classical approach. “The next movie we’re working on is more of a straight story. There’s character development, and I’m trying to implement the virtues we learned from Luz on how to tell a story with all the cinematic tools, yet still tell this very approachable classical story,” says Singer. “What I’m trying to do is make a mix of what you call a piece of art and a narrative piece…”
Success sadly evades Singer this time in a manner eerily reminiscent of Osgood Perkins’ recent misfortune with his poorly judged psychological horror Longlegs (2024). Neither director is comfortable with ambiguity. Instead, they seek to clearly explain to their audiences, which is where their films come undone. In both Cuckoo and Longlegs, the comparison to the detailed exposition in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) is straightforward.
Hitchcock, however, gets out of “critics’ jail” with his use of hefty exposition in a way that Perkins and Singer cannot. While Perkins tags on an unnecessary explanation in Longlegs that derails the captivating ambivalence – although fitting given that his father, Anthony Perkins, played Psycho’s killer – Cuckoo‘s revelation about König’s “quest for preservation” fails to offer a clear explanation. As Cuckoo‘s final act progresses, the expectation is that the strange, paranormal, and reproductive horror will be explained. Singer might pursue the classical storytelling structure, but his failure to articulate the story’s finer narrative details and develop Cuckoo’s characters suggests an unconscious reluctance.
Despite its flaws, Cuckoo remains a highly enjoyable film. This speaks to Singer’s skill as a filmmaker at entertaining with the type of messy genre picture that’s an acquired taste. Then again, perhaps this is Singer’s modus operandi, whether he knows it or not. Cuckoo represents Singer’s attempt to escape his own wild and unbridled imagination, but can we escape who we are?
Cuckoo is a film of two halves. The early ambiguity, with its strange and quirky energy driven by the suspicious Gretchen and odd-ball König, is far more captivating than its expositional final act. König, subtly recalls Dan Stevens’ dramatically hyped or elevated approach as Frank in Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s vampire horror, Abigail (2024) – a corrupt former detective turned criminal. This creates a symbiotic connection between his Abigail and Cuckoo characters.
In Cuckoo, Hunter Schafer holds her ground opposite Stevens, playing Gretchen with a finely judged nuance. The two actors share a simmering chemistry that suits the evolution of their evasive and distrustful, even manipulative dance before it escalates into violence.
Singer layers his horror and body horror with the mad scientist and hero’s journey. In as much as it’s a reproductive horror, Cuckoo is also a coming-of-age story. Gretchen, the film’s heroine, rises against her tyrannical enemy. Where Singer fails in his metamorphosis, Gretchen succeeds. The larger problem with these character arcs is they are not complemented by rich themes and ideas. Instead, Singer appropriates themes of motherhood, the God complex, the outsider, and the broken family, only to parade and objectify them with his passivity.
With its Cronenbergesque spirit, Cuckoo fails to successfully follow in the footsteps of Canadian auteur David Cronenberg. The emphasis on thematic context and conversation in, for example, the reproductive horror The Brood (1979) and the erotic social satire Videodrome (1983) appears to have gone AWOL in Cuckoo. If there’s a semblance of something deeper, it’s how the story responds to the issue of reproductive rights and a woman’s autonomy over her own body. Cuckoo‘s characters could represent different social and political antagonists, specifically Americans, but Singer fails to ignite it into anything substantial.
Singer’s struggles to tell a cohesive story create a vacuous, even narrative existential crisis that denies the film a reason to exist beyond the superficiality of the experience. Yet, until its final 30–40 minutes, Cuckoo is a deliriously enjoyable experience. Even when Singer loses control, there’s a madness to it that still holds a certain appeal.
Cuckoo had its Montreal Premiere at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival. Neon will release it in the US on 9 August, followed by Universal Pictures’ UK release on 23 August 2024.