As a horror fan, 2024 has easily been one of the best years for horror releases in a long time. It’s not just that we’ve gotten several horror releases this year, but the quality and the diversity of the genre has kept the year fresh. Cuckoo is one of the better horror films of the year. It sadly got overlooked at the box office, but it’s one of those films that for those who have seen it, I feel it leaves an impression, because aside from taking familiar tropes, it manages to feel fresh but also has a WTF factor that seems harder to come by these days. In my opinion, Cuckoo is a film that works better knowing as little as you can about it. Going in blind definitely puts you firmly in place to enjoy the film’s ambiguity, and when it starts to go into some strange directions, just go with it. The film may seem a bit odd and confusing as it progresses, but that’s the fun of it.
Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) is the film’s protagonist; she’s a precocious American teenager who is stuck going on vacation with her father, Luis (Martin Csokas), along with his new wife (Jessica Henwick) and their mute daughter, Alma (Mila Lieu). The vacation is to a remote resort in the Bavarian Alps. It’s a beautiful setting, though you’ll have to allow for the slightest bit of suspension of disbelief that a fully equipped hospital is nearby. Now this sort of makes sense as the film plays on, but it’s really just a way to keep the narrative going. The resort is run by Herr Konig (Dan Stevens), and he has invited Luis to the resort with hopes of them working together on creating a new project … though from the moment Gretchen meets Konig, she knows not to trust him, but it takes a bit to find out if she’s right or not.
To keep herself busy, Gretchen gets a part-time job at the resort and quickly starts to notice that there is something strange going on, and of course no one will believe her. The film definitely feels reminiscent of Shutter Island and A Cure For Wellness but certainly has its own take on the trope of a protagonist being in a location where things just are not how they appear to be. The location, beautiful and serene, slowly becomes creepy and more ominous as the film plays out, and this film is very much driven by the mood it sets.
The strength of the film is with the performances from the cast. Schafer and Stevens are fun every time they are on screen together. It may be a bit frustrating that the father clearly doesn’t want to listen to his daughter’s concern, but for me it added another layer to the situation that perhaps the father does know what is going on, and he’s possibly keeping the truth from her. When the young daughter ends up in the hospital after a seizure, this only isolates Gretchen even more, because all the attention from her family is now focused on the young girl. Schafer handles this so well in the way her actions and her expressions how her helplessness is spiraling and her need for escape is only intensifying.
There are characters who pop up in the film and directions this film takes that seem intentionally vague, and as a viewer you’ll either love or hate this. Some things will come together for you in the end, but other things, not so much. There are certain things that kind of aggravate me about the film; one is a slight spoiler concerning Gretchen’s family, so I won’t bring that up, but the other has to do with characters repeating an action on a weird loop. It gets explained, but for me it just was done a bit too much, especially because it typically repeats something so trivial. And then there is the explanation for what is really going on in the film … again I won’t spoil anything but it just felt a tad underwhelming despite it mostly explaining itself.
At the end of the day I still enjoyed the film; I just don’t see it having a high replay value. This is one though to enjoy for the performances. As a side note, I’m glad to see Dan Stevens getting more genre work. I thought he was great in Abigail, and in Cuckoo he just about steals the film, and would have if Hunter Schafer didn’t deliver on her performance as she did. This is a solid horror film, but this isn’t just one you throw on as some background noise. This one does need to follow along for the ride.
