Cuckoo Review: Hunter Schafer Soars In This Screeching Ride Of Repulsive Sci-Fi Body Horror [Overlook 2024]

In Greek mythology, cuckoo birds were sacred creatures to the goddess Hera. Elsewhere, like in Europe and the United States, the cuckoo is often associated with the clock that imitates its birdsong, Coca Puffs, or as the name of origin for the words "cuck" and "cuckoldry," as the bird leaves its eggs in other nests and tricks other birds into raising its young (get it?). For Tilman Singer's new horror film, "Cuckoo" is a bonkers, bloody rollercoaster of terrorizing sound design and dynamic performances that feels like it could fall off the rails at any moment.

Fortunately, "Cuckoo" commits to its strange, sinister logic with fearlessness and refuses to play into formulaic movie logic while dangling familiar tropes like a hunter baiting prey, making this screeching ride of repulsive body horror wanting another go around. Admittedly, it might be hard to make sense of how some of the first-act logic feeds into the reveals in the third, but any surreal, experimental story worth its salt would demand the same.

"Euphoria" star Hunter Schafer leads as Gretchen, a 17-year-old forced to move in with her father and his new wife and daughter in a remote home they built in the German Alps. The vibes are off from the second the family arrives and is greeted by Herr König (Dan Stevens), the owner of the local resort and friend of her parents, who emotes like a Bond villain in a gay porn parody [complimentary]. A horrific scream song radiates out of the nearby forest, guests at the resort spontaneously vomit, Gretchen cannot stop getting brutally injured, and a strange woman with red eyes terrorizes people at night. 

"Cuckoo" is a maddening head trip from start to finish, but if you try to think about it too hard, you might, well, drive yourself cuckoo.

Gretchen moves to Germany with her father Luis (Marton Csókás), his wife Beth (Jessica Henwick), and their daughter Alma (Mila Leiu), who lives with selective mutism. Gretchen grew up living with her mother, and her presence with her father's new family is palpably hostile. She's an interruption of their dynamic, she doesn't fit their "aesthetic" or attitude, and she's looking for an out back to the States by any means necessary.

So when Herr König offers her a job at his resort to get away from the family she despises, she takes the gig despite being the only one who sees what no one else seems to notice — this guy is f***ing bird-brained. Stevens, as always, is a scene-stealing genius in the role. He somehow manages to find half a dozen different ways to pronounce "Gretchen," a bit that could only be pulled off by the same guy who gave us Alexander Lemtov in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga." But he sets the tone of the film immediately, injecting an odd sense of familiarity intertwined with the realization that all bets are off.

The production design echoes this uncertainty by incorporating modern devices like noise-canceling headphones and remote-controlled security walls with tech that probably looks prehistoric to kids under the age of 10 like cassette-tape answering machines and hotel keys that are actual keys. The resort is filled with midcentury furniture and interior design that hasn't been updated since 1983, forcing "Cuckoo" into a visual time vortex that enhances the subconscious instability of the story. Singer incorporates so many elements without any explanation that you're constantly asking questions in your head, which I predict was exactly the point. "Cuckoo" intentionally wants to knock you off your game, and when it works, it works well enough that you forget whatever other nonsense he tossed in as a distraction.

Schafer's strong-willed, straight-shooting, absolutely sensational performance is the anchor in this chaotic storm. In a film littered with visual language suited for a European arthouse release from the 1970s, goopy bodily fluids that feel right at home in midnight movie schlock of the 1980s, an unapologetic referential embrace of American '90s horror, the mean streak of horror from the '00s, the creative exploration of personal trauma of 2010s horror, and an anti-bioessentialist message that will make '20s audiences cheer, "Cuckoo" is — as the kids say — wild as hell for this one. Schafer commands every scene (and she's in about 90% of them) and manages to make a wholly unlikable character on paper someone you can't help but root for. She expertly navigates every tonal shift Singer throws at her and dominates the climax with subtle ferocity. Between Schafer in "Cuckoo" and Sydney Sweeney in "Immaculate," 2024 is apparently the year of the "Euphoria" girlies doing weirdo horror movies and thriving.

"Cuckoo" is equal parts head-scratcher and mind-blower but so ridiculously audacious that it's impossible not to obsess over. I have no doubt that this will be one of the more polarizing films of the year but what other movie has a Dr. Moreau-esque genetic experimentation conspiracy, a freshly head-wounded Hunter Schafer making out with a lesbian she's known for 15 minutes with a cigarette in her hand, adult women barfing like birds feeding their young, and Dan Stevens playing a wooden flute like Willy Wonka beckoning Oompa Loompas in the chocolate factory? 

Like the bird that gives the film its title and the creature Herr König is so obsessed with, Singer has dropped his horror baby in all of our nests and made it our responsibility to make sense of it and give it life.

/Film Rating: 8 out of 10