It’s been a few years since writer/director Tilman Singer’s strange, utterly hypnotic feature debut, LUZ. In his latest, CUCKOO, the filmmaker returns with a horror tale that may be a little more straight-forward than his previous outing yet maintains the spellbinding weirdness and disorienting madness that made LUZ so appealing. Singer’s sophomore feature — having just played at the Fantasia Film Festival — plunges headfirst into themes of bodily autonomy, becoming a defiant screech against a patriarchal society that aims to control women. Like one of Neon’s previous releases from this year, IMMACULATE, CUCKOO looks at the current state of things and says, “Over my dead body!”
Set in The Bavarian Alps, Germany, Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) and her family have arrived at Resort Alpscharten. Her father and stepmother are working on a new design for the hotel, invited to stay there while they work by the owner, König (Dan Stevens). Gretchen plans on running away the first chance she gets, but after she is attacked by a monstrous woman and her stepsister experiences a violent seizure, the butterfly-knife wielding teen finds herself pulled into a mystery she can’t just run from.
My parents divorced when I was a kid, and I can say that Gretchen — played with a tough as nails magnetism by Schafer — reflects well the tumultuous feelings that arise in such a situation. Parents suddenly pay more attention to the new people that have entered their life, while you become a stranger in your own family. Angry. Alone. It’s as if you’ve been kicked out of the nest…said nest acting as the dominant theme of CUCKOO. Singer opens his film on a young girl running into the night and leaving behind arguing parents whose shadows warp into the vague image of pecking birds. Their voices blended with the high-pitched screeches of some avian creature. Gretchen also wants to run away, taking a job working the front desk at the hotel so she can make enough money to get the hell out of dodge. Her father ignores her. Her step-mother, often dressed in feathery clothing—getting the bird theme, yet?—aggravates her. And she has little interest in her much younger and mute stepsister, Alma (Mila Lieu). To emphasize the bird’s nest metaphor, eye-catching production design by Dario Mendez Acosta paints walls in pastel blues and greens that recall the shells of an egg, while the forest wrapped around the resort is imbued with a foreboding darkness. A scary world just outside the nest.
Around any nest you’ll find predators lurking. Enter a deliciously slimy Dan Stevens, relishing in a role that allows him to go full creep, sparkling eyes flicking about, always watchful and calculating. CUCKOO isn’t quite the monster movie you may be expecting, light on the body count and scares, but whether from König or the screeching woman stalking Gretchen, Singer assures the audience is always aware of a threat hiding beneath the lush setting. An unnerving sound design pecks at the nerves. Quick cuts to close-ups of the mystery woman’s pulsating throat enhance the strange atmosphere. Singer even takes a page out of Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, surrounding Gretchen with stuffed bears and hawks that look down on her as prey like she’s in Norman Bates’ back office. Despite a plot that creeps more than it soars, the filmmaker keeps the audience on their toes, filling the background with curious sounds and unsettling events such as a phenomena of women vomiting, appearing dazed and confused. Not to mention an array of suspicious characters that also includes a potential romantic interest staying at the resort and a cop claiming to be investigating a death.
Like those women seen losing their lunch now and then in Gretchen’s presence, CUCKOO often leaves the viewer feeling disoriented and confused. That’s not a criticism. Singer does so with intent, imbuing the creature at the heart of the film with the ability to cause slight time jumps that send anyone who hears its call back by a few seconds. This leaves characters repeating lines and actions like echoes through time, each repeat becoming more and more unnerving. The film acts as a sort of psychosis on the audience, wanting us to feel as trapped and controlled as the protagonists. I wouldn’t dare invite rotten eggs thrown my way with spoilers, but with his sophomore feature, Singer delivers a beak-sharp commentary on the destructive nature of man and the god complex that leaves some of them believing they have a say over women’s bodies. CUCKOO joins a slew of films this year such as IMMACULATE and THE FIRST OMEN that give a massive finger to such men, and I’d argue it is, at the very least, more unique than any of them.
Complete with a banging soundtrack, timely themes and standout performances from Schafer and Stevens, CUCKOO cements Singer as a strong voice in the horror genre. A dizzying leap from a nest of safety, it’s as strange as it is captivating, an odd yet triumphant screech against domineering men that threatens to claw and peck their eyes out if they threaten to control anyone’s body outside their own. I won’t go as far as to say I’m cuckoo for CUCKOO — sorry, I had to — thanks to an obvious plot and B-threads in the story that all but disappear, yet it’s nevertheless a satisfying discussion on bodily autonomy that looks at the patriarchy as the wriggling worm it is and tears it to pieces.
Preferred pronouns: He/him
Tags: Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, Dan Stevens, Fantasia Film Festival, Greta Fernández, Hunter Schafer, Jan Bluthardt, Jessica Henwick, Marton Csokas, Matt Konopka, neon, Paul Faltz, Philipp Thomas, Simon Waskow, Terel Gibson, Tilman Singer
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