Review: "Cuckoo"
Hunter Schafer's transcendent lead performance holds together an engaging-enough thrill ride that thrives on directorial execution more than storytelling.
Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo offers a simple set-up. A story involving a protagonist in a remote location where, as one can imagine in films like this, things aren’t always as they appear. As Singer tackles a familiar premise, what results is a tense thriller that is engaging in execution and in its central performances even if story-wise things may go too off the rails.
Hunter Schafer stars as Gretchen in Tilman Singer’s “Cuckoo.” (Photo courtesy of NEON)
The film’s protagonist in question is Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), a teenager moving away from America to live in the Alps with her father Luis (Martin Csokas), her stepmother Beth (Jessica Henwick), and her mute stepsister Alma (Mila Lieu). When all four of them arrive, they’re welcomed by Luis’ boss Herr König (Dan Stevens) who kindly gives Gretchen a hotel receptionist job.
As things go bump in the night with Gretchen slowly uncovering the sinister conspiracy at hand, it is the tense family drama at hand that proves to be more unsettling. Although Luis lets Gretchen live with him and his new family, as she tries confronting Luis about the weird occurrences transpiring, him showing hasty animosity touches a harrowing nerve. The feeling of being an outsider in a strange land where you’re even slowly brushed aside by those closest to you is where most of the horror in Cuckoo truly lies along with Singer’s use of atmosphere. Sequences of Gretchen wandering at nighttime or working at the hotel reception desk alone allow Singer to take great advantage of the eerily isolated setting.
As Cuckoo bounces between the heavy domestic drama and being a crazed cult thriller packed with twists and turns that still succumbs to a drawn-out third act, one thing that holds it together is the central performance by Hunter Schafer. In what her first leading role in a feature film, Schafer is magnetic, heartbreaking, and steely as Gretchen fights for her survival. Much like her Euphoria co-stars, including Sydney Sweeney who also got into scream queen mode with a NEON horror film this year, the future seems to be bright for this young star and one can hope she gets to carry more films in the future.
Meanwhile, the one supporting actor who inhales every moment he’s in is, of course, a man who’s at least become one of Hollywood’s most reliable scene stealers: Dan Stevens. Stevens is a diabolical delight as Herr König, deeply biting into almost every line reading without devouring the scenery whole. Even in his intro scene where König gladly welcomes Gretchen and her family to the Alps, Stevens walks a delicate line between exuding hospitality and antagonism. Between this and Abigail, it’s safe to say it’s been a good year for Dan Stevens playing horror movie sleazebags. Sadly, the superbly talented Jessica Henwick, who has third billing in the trailer, is given little to work with as Beth.
In the end, Cuckoo is still mainly the Hunter Schafer show. Schafer is the anchor holding together a film that may get too twisty story-wise but still admirably swings for the fences to avoid being a standard “protagonist trapped in a seemingly idyllic setting” thriller and thrives on the directorial execution from Tilman Singer as well as the gritty, realistic family drama at hand.
Grade: B-
Cuckoo is being released in theaters nationwide by NEON this Friday.