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Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
After the successful/viral releases of both Michael Mohan’s Immaculate and Osgood “Oz” Perkins’s Longlegs, independent film production and distribution company Neon continues 2024 with Tilman Singer’s newest feature filmmaking project, Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer. This horror-mystery thriller title was initially announced for a 2023 release date, then was intended for a May release earlier this year, until it eventually settled for a release this August. With all this time and anticipation, one can only hope for the best story possible. Yet, like a great many movies to have come out this year, Cuckoo struggles to reach satisfaction across audiences.
Cuckoo is written and directed by Tilman Singer (Luz).
In this review, I will discuss Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo. As the article’s title suggests, no spoilers will be present.
Official Cuckoo Synopsis
According to Neon Press, here is the synopsis for Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer.
Reluctantly, 17-year-old Gretchen 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, 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.
Neon Press
Discussion
Sure, Singer’s project has had a lot of potential to be great since its announcement. However, there is no ignoring the number of challenges it faces. This can be broken down from the character development, audio components, and ultimately, the overall narrative. From these elements, one could tell there was a huge artistic choice in how Cuckoo‘s production and post-production were handled.
An Almost Sight for Sore Eyes
On the bright side, the movie tries hard to appeal to genre fans. For example, the presentation of its characters is not too gaudy. Beth (Jessica Henwick) is the most prominent in terms of appearing as the luxurious type. Cuckoo is the first time I have seen Henwick as a mother figure but never ceases to maintain her youth. By comparison, König (Dan Stevens) is austere for a man who seeks control and power. His business-like manner gives much away about his ethos, predictable even. Then again, the most outstanding appearance comes from Brian Kinney’s aesthetic work on Gretchen (Hunter Schafer)—short hair with more and more wounds via makeup as the narrative progresses.
Cinematographer Paul Faltz and production designer Dario Mendez Acosta help demonstrate some interesting set pieces and sequences in motion. The opening scene alone showcases a shot of silhouettes above a staircase of two parents arguing as the camera pulls away to capture its first young character in the frame. The story has a nice touch on lighting and how it creates shadows, literally darker, tenebrous copies of characters. The visual effects are to be admired, with the camera focused on one character and the background vibrating or shaking insofar that it evokes a nauseating feeling.
Singer introduces ideas that could work in favor of the resolution of the final act but somehow refuses to expand on them. Gretchen makes an implication earlier on that the story could include the Gothic technique of twins, but that isn’t the case. Yet, one concept that he does play around with is the manipulation of time. Watching certain sequences with audio and visual cues in place initially gives off a bewildering impression… but once the narrative takes on more beats, that only becomes the tip of the iceberg.
The Convenient Cliché
When I learned that Henwick would be acting alongside Schafer and Stevens, I was excited, to say the least. Three magnificent performers of this caliber? Combined, the horror fans could have a lot to look forward to with either woman portraying the final girl role. Not to mention Stevens has no issue playing the bad guy archetype. At this point, it’s naturally a probable situation for him. Unfortunately, the casting of Henwick and, moreover, Mila Lieu as Gretchen’s family members plays a troublesome role in Singer’s narrative.
In horror movies, it is almost easy to determine who the antagonist’s target will be right away. Eerily enough, Alma’s (Lieu) role is a little too convenient. Essentially, anyone in Cuckoo is susceptible to physical—and by extension, psychological—harm so long as their ears are not covered. Specifically, Gretchen’s young half-sister, Alma, is described as someone who cannot speak but is not deaf. In other words… she’s mute. With Henwick’s role minimized to just being there and offering pretty much nothing, the German filmmaker’s screenwriting is reduced to making use of the silent Asian cliché.
The incorporation of this stereotype is an aspect of storytelling that has been around for a while now. In recent years, audiences have noticed this with Karen Fukuhara’s characters in Suicide Squad and The Boys, Justin H. Min’s Ben Hargreeves in The Umbrella Academy, and Pom Klementieff’s Paris in last summer’s eighth Mission: Impossible. Cuckoo tries to work this into the narrative but its mere attempts are instantly distasteful. In one scene, Alma communicates through a mobile phone English-to-German translator application. However, Singer never bothers to integrate this option into the character afterward. Next to that, if you are looking for Henwick to be a scream queen, then you are better off watching Underwater.
Hunter Schafer Is Tormented By AI Voices
Furthermore, Cuckoo‘s largest obstacle—one viewers cannot run from—is the cuckoo voices. A perusal of the movie’s end credits shows that the voices of the “Homo-Cuculidae”, i.e., the cuckoo birds, are modified by artificial intelligence. What makes the use of AI harsher to gauge is the frequency of the voices sounding off throughout the narrative. They’re incredibly grating and nearly annoying, which means it’s an inevitable occurrence. To put it simply, the AI heard in the more despairing moments of the movie is a major impediment to the viewing experience. The sound design and editing crew could have approached this aspect with a smarter aim needed to achieve excellence.
The Crew Behind Cuckoo
Paul Faltz serves as the director of photography for the film. Felix Dickinson and Monica Lek are the stills photographers for the film.
Simon Waskow scores the music.
Rupert Hollier serves as the music supervisor. Kevin McKeever (World War Z, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, Scream VI, The Toxic Avenger) serves as the music editor.
Jeffrey “Jeff” A. Pitts, Odin Benitez (I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Cat in the Hat, My Soul to Take, Scream 4, John Wick: Chapter 2, Happy Death Day 2U, Malignant, HBO’s The Last of Us), Jonas Lux, Steffen Pfauth, and Torsten Zumhof serve as the sound designers.
Henning Hein is the supervising sound editor. Alexandros Topalis is the sound editor.
Terel Gibson (Sorry to Bother You, Ready or Not, Haunt) and Philipp Thomas are the editors.
Mike Twin Jones serves as the assistant editor. Jan Schepmann, Roman Brauch, Jan Pfitzner, and Niklas Lipski are the assistant editors in post-production.
Sabine Schwedhelm serves as the casting director of the film. Tamsyn Manson is the UK casting director.
Madli Moos serves as the intimacy coordinator.
Benjamin Kniebe is the storyboard artist for the film.
Christoph Knobloch serves as the stunt coordinator. Tobias Nied is the additional stunt coordinator.
Denise Teffler serves as the stunt double for both Hunter Schafer and Astrid Berges-Frisbey.
Katrin Gärtner is the stunt double for Kalin Morrow. Marco Albrecht is the stunt double for Dan Stevens.
Yahaya Samare is the stunt double for the nurse minor role.
Aesthetics
Dario Mendez Acosta serves as the production designer.
Frank Prümmer is the art director. Katja Luger is the set decorator.
Frauke Firl serves as the costume designer.
Astrid Weber and Hannah Fischleder are the hair and makeup designers.
Brian Kinney is the personal hair & makeup artist to Hunter Schafer.
Oliver Hildebrandt is the hair and makeup artist. Julian Hutcheson and Alla Leonova are additional hair and makeup artists.
At Rising Sun Pictures, Matt Greig serves as the visual effects supervisor. Natalie Dury serves as the visual effects producer.
At Automatik VFX, Jean-Michel Boublil serves as the VFX supervisor. Giulia Solia serves as the VFX producer. Aurora Giordano serves as the VFX editor.
At Planet X, Pepijn Schroeijers serves as the VFX supervisor. Dennis Kleyn and Jonne Roos serve as the VFX producers.
At Engine Room Hollywood, Dan Schmit serves as the VFX supervisor. Michael Caplan is the VFX executive producer. Adam Simpson serves as the VFX senior editor, and André Felix serves as the VFX editor.
The Cast of Cuckoo
Hunter Schafer (HBO’s Euphoria, Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness) portrays Gretchen. Mila Lieu plays Alma, Gretchen’s half-sister.
Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey, The Guest, FX’s Legion, Apostle, Lucy in the Sky, The Rental, Abigail) portrays Herr König, the employer of Gretchen’s father.
Márton Csókás (Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel) plays Luis. Jessica Henwick (Marvel/Netflix’s Iron Fist, Love and Monsters, The Matrix Resurrections, Glass Onion, The Royal Hotel) portrays Beth, Gretchen’s stepmother.
Jan Bluthardt plays Henry, a local police investigator. Lesley Higl plays Henry’s wife.
Greta Fernández plays Beatrix “Trixie”, Gretchen’s colleague at the local resort.
Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey plays Ed, a French woman with whom Gretchen establishes a close relationship.
Proschat Madani plays Dr. Bonomo, the local hospital’s medical superintendent. Veronika Bachfischer plays the doctor’s assistant.
Konrad Singer plays Erik, a local policeman.
Kalin Morrow plays a hooded woman. Johannes Benecke plays a silent cop.
Elisa Kühnl voices the Homo-Cuculidae. Kühnl is also credited for having artificial intelligence (AI) audio effects modeled after her performance in the movie.
Hunter Schafer Is Everything
Schafer has decent delivery and performance as Gretchen. The character is written as a person in the middle of grief—a common internal conflict for women protagonists in horror. In Cuckoo, trauma plays a part in her life where she constantly has to call out for help and hopes for an answer. I wish Singer knew where he was going with this because it would have provided a meaningful lens into Gretchen. At the same time, she has a unique personality to her: she loves music a ton and often hides away from reality in it. For Schafer as a trans woman, specifically, this detail about Gretchen is lovely because her sense of belonging is a driving force. Her presence in Germany is incongruous with her family’s place there, where she exists exterior to the Western family dynamic.
Conversely, I love her calling to elsewhere through her relationship with Ed (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey). These two women do not have as enough screen time together as I would like. The spiciness of this particular dynamic is not to be frowned upon. Singer seems to want to draw this out longer but cuts it a little too early. Evidently, he has a lot to develop not just in the story but also at the character level. Gretchen does not have a strong relationship with anybody, but Ed is the best that the filmmaker comes up with.
As a kind of weapon against the “cuckoos”, the main character has the opportunity to drown out these sounds. At a couple of points in the introductory act, Gretchen is seen with an amplifier for her bass guitar. Ultimately, the narrative avoidance of using this as a tool forms a plot hole, as are other details that are left without extrapolation.
Final Thoughts on Cuckoo
Storywise, the German filmmaker has a good amount of ideas to blend into his movie but just doesn’t take those risks. His main message of theme is apparently that qualities and character traits are not necessarily inherited but could be absorbed in interactions with others, that these could stem from an adoptive environment. It’s difficult to ascertain if this is even true with Hunter Schafer’s character because the film is often muddled in direction. Cuckoo is a surprising disarray of incomplete writing that Tilman Singer was not wise at bringing to perfection.
3/5 stars
Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo is now playing in theaters!
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Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
