‘Cuckoo’ Review: Hunter Schafer Soars in a Wacky Body Horror Gem

Tilman Singer Cuckoo is a fun midnight horror movie that works despite its goofier elements. A mountainous horror film reminiscent of The Brilliant —albeit with much more overt body horror—it follows the tribulations of a family of four as they settle in near a posh lodge in a remote corner of the German Alps.

When strange sounds emanating from the nearby forests begin to have bizarre bodily effects on some of the guests, Gretchen, a moody 17-year-old girl (Hunter Schafer of Euphoria) eventually stumbles upon an ongoing investigation into something both stupid and sinister. With its tense atmosphere and impeccable ensemble that throws everything at the wall, Cuckoo emerges as a largely unique work despite its many familiar elements, thanks in part to its increasingly twisted implications around gender and biology. It’s incredibly strange and slyly funny.

What is Cuckoo about?

Before introducing its central characters, CuckooThe mysterious prologue of orients the viewer into a world of familial and bodily dysfunction. In a country house in the dead of night, the silhouettes of an unhappily married husband and wife yelling at each other are superimposed over shots of a teenage girl—presumably their daughter—who wakes up in her bedroom and goes outside to avoid the unpleasantness. Suddenly, a prolonged shrill scream somewhere in the distance begins to take hold of her, as she writhes and seemingly begins to move against her will.

To understand these oddities, you’ll have to wait more than an hour of the film’s 102 minutes. In the meantime, Singer crafts an engaging character drama as soon as he introduces his leads. As Luis (Marton Csókás), his wife Beth (Jessica Henwick), and their selectively silent daughter Alma (Mila Lieu) drive their family car up the hill to their new home in a luxury resort, Gretchen, Luis’s daughter from a previous marriage, sits behind them in the moving truck. This dynamic conveys an immediate sense of disillusionment with the family unit. While Luis, Beth, and Alma wear funky, earthy sweaters and are polite, Gretchen’s baggy, loose-fitting clothes and agitated, irritable body language set her apart. She feels like an outsider, rejected by her own clan, and she wants nothing more than to return to her mother in the States.

Upon arrival, the family is greeted by the resort’s owner, Mr. König (Dan Stevens), a cartoonish, seedy guy who clearly hides something twisted beneath his welcoming demeanor. It’s as if Stevens has been tasked with playing Victor Frankenstein through Christoph Waltz. His atmosphere is immediately stale and strange, laced with a sense of wary possibility between him and Gretchen’s family—particularly his interest in young Alma. It feels as if anything could happen in Cuckooeven before anything actually happens.

König eventually finds Gretchen a job as a receptionist at a nearby lodge, though he gives her strict instructions not to stay out too long after dark. Gretchen, being a snotty, unhappy teenager, does exactly as she pleases. But as she bikes home late one night, she finds herself pursued by shadowy figures she glimpses only intermittently. Gretchen’s pursuer inexplicably appears to be a well-dressed mid-century starlet, “normal” in every way except for her ferocity and glowing red eyes.

No one seems to believe Gretchen, despite her scars and injuries from the encounter. That is, no one except local police detective Henry (Jan Bluthardt), who not only takes it upon himself to protect Gretchen, but inexplicably enlists her help in what appears to be an ongoing investigation. Soon after, Cuckoo becomes a kind of bizarre cop movie, with each scene ending in a more horrific injury to Gretchen, much like Homer Simpson falling off a cliff and hitting every branch in his path. It’s a treat to watch, even before the film gives any indication of what’s going on.

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Cuckoo’s strange execution is incredibly effective.

Gretchen, a little girl rejected by her own family, becomes the center of an avian-themed science fiction horror. Not only does König have an affinity for discussing the biology and sociology of certain birds, but the particular cry that seems to shake Gretchen and her half-sister also has an avian quality. Her arrival is also typically marked by blurry, disconnected close-ups of a woman’s vibrating chest, as if it were some kind of mating call.

Yet even when the film isn’t directly addressing this animal theme—and its potential implications for the “natural order,” which often crop up in dialogue—Singer’s mobile camera never stops searching empty spaces for a place to land and perch. Its slow zooms and forward thrusts seem mischievous. The film has few (if any) traditional jump scares, relying heavily on inducing creeping fear, both visually and thematically, as its tale of conspiracies and experiments unfolds.

Much of the tension Singer creates comes from the doubts and second-guessing he carefully plants throughout his script. From Gretchen’s familial rejection and personal isolation to her brief, liberating respite when she meets and secretly falls in love with a flapper-clad older lesbian at the resort (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey’s magnetic Ed), the specter of conformity and the limitations of the nuclear family loom over every scene. CuckooGretchen’s red-eyed monstrous woman has a distinctly feminine appearance, reinforcing the sense that deeply ingrained notions of gender are still nipping at her heels. Eventually, when the plot details emerge – via some rather clumsy exposition – those notions are not only further focused, but become deliciously perverted. You’ve never seen a movie that makes vaginal discharge seem so sinister.

The fact that Schafer is a trans woman only reinforces this subtext, even if her character’s identity in this regard is not mentioned. However, what she brings to the role is far more exceptional than a nominal representation, given the amount of emotional labor involved.

Hunter Schafer delivers an incredible performance.

Cuckoo It doesn’t always work. The film is full of jagged edges and obvious metaphors about the deep, long-standing nature of gender expectations. What’s virtually indisputable, though, is Hunter Schafer’s arrival as a major presence in cinema, writing entire treatises on the body and how it keeps score, even in its stillness.

Consider, for example, the positioning of her hands at her sides, stiff and motionless except for a few jerky movements of her fingers. At first glance, it’s a typically adolescent choice, flirting with self-parody, until its function becomes apparent. Gretchen carries a switchblade for protection, and when she finally swings it, the movement of her fingers suddenly makes perfect sense. These movements are mirror images of one another, as if Gretchen is always on guard, always ready to defend herself against bodily harm. Schafer brings a sense of paranoia to every frame, as if Gretchen has already been the victim of some kind of targeted harassment—once again, reinforcing the film’s queer subtext without saying it out loud.

It’s equally remarkable how Schafer handles the emotions of simple domestic scenes, accepting her father’s rejection—and his apparent preference for Alma, his traditionally feminine daughter—with a sense of resignation, as if it were her lot in life. Her adolescent jadedness is always rooted in something deeply, fundamentally human, living just beneath the surface of her body language, as if she were telling the story with her arms, her shoulders, her eyes.

The fact that she goes to difficult emotional places on top of that, places that require enormous vulnerability on screen, is just icing on the cake. It’s also what keeps Cuckoo to go completely off the rails when it gets too carried away by its own ridiculous story (which, unfortunately, never quite reaches the bizarre apotheosis it seems to promise). Whatever the film’s most egregious horrors, whether it’s its creepy atmosphere or its attempts at amusingly visceral and moral obscenities, they’re all tied to Schafer’s growing physical and emotional despondency. She doesn’t just save the film. East the film, which makes it all the more remarkable to watch.

Cuckoo hits theaters on August 9.

UPDATED: August 5, 2024, 1:24 p.m. EDT “Cuckoo” was initially panned at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival.