Announcing that your brand new horror is scary and all is all well and good – but I’d rather prefer it if the ad campaign for the latest fear flavour of the month hyped up just how fucking weird it is instead. Take Longlegs for example, Osgood Perkins’ satanic serial killer flick that scored way more on the weird shit-o-meter and sheer creepy ambience than it did on scare points and was probably far better off for it.
Well, if you thought that the sight of Nic Cage as a pale, puffy-faced, glam rock loving satanist was the peak of 2024’s bizarro Mount Everest, Neon films is about to counter with the sight of Dan Stevens malevolently playing a recorder in Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo, their follow up to Longlegs that proves to be every inch its equal when it comes to satisfyingly eccentric horror.
Strange creatures in the woods, family strife and the German sense of humour all collide in possibly the most esoteric monster movie of the year.
You have to feel bad for Gretchen. Not only is the teenager struggling to reconcile her conflicting emotions after the recent death of her mother, but she’s also been whisked off to a resort town in the Bavarian Alps by her father Luis and she has to contend with her judgemental step-mother, Beth and her mute half-sister Alma. Probably feeling more disaffected than she ever has in her whole life, things start veering from upsetting to out and out strange after meeting with the owner of the resort, the intensely friendly Herr König, who immediately offers her a job on the front desk in order to keep her occupied.
However, it isn’t long until Gretchen starts noticing that things are decidedly off about this resort. Random women who are staying in the cabins start to wander into the reception area, vomiting and obviously discombobulated, König’s rules about working hours seem to strangely be counterproductive when you consider that he’s essentially running a hotel and most disconcerting of all, the area seems to be the prowling ground for a strange, predatory, hooded woman who attacks Gretchen one night as she heads home from work.
Who ever this strange female is, she seems to roam the woods at night, is equipped with horn-rimmed shades and way too much lipstick and seems to be responsible for the spate of confused women in the area due to a strange ability to emit a piercing screech at such a pitch it causes anyone who hears it to lose all ability to think clearly. An attempt to flee the area ends with Gretchen in hospital, but as the vague twines of information gradually begin to knit together, she soon finds out that her architect father getting a job here is no happy accident and Herr König’s mysterious claims of conservation prove to be utterly, utterly…. cuckoo.
So let’s get to the meat of the matter. Cuckoo, despite some well executed horror moments, isn’t particularly scary compared to other movies, but then there’s the feeling that Tilman Singer isn’t trying to be; at least not in a conventional sense. No, what Cuckoo is trying to be is odd – but not crazy, throw everything at the screen immediately odd – but more of the tweak the edges kind of strange you’d feel if something bizarre happened to you while you were already experiencing culture shock by being in another country. Take our lead character played by Euphoria breakout Hunter Shafer who cuts such a gangly, androgynous figure, it’s hard to imagine a place where she’d possibly feel comfortable and her sense of alienation and abandonment only add to the feeling that she just doesn’t fit. Add to that her overwhelming grief for her mother, the cavernous estrangement she feels from a father who seemingly has already moved on from her to care more about his new family and the fact that she’s gay means that plonking her in the Bravarian Alps against her will only increase her feelings of disconnection.
This tone of utter bewilderment is seemingly Singer’s goal and anyone who has tried to acclimate themselves to another country will immediately recognize how tough it is trying to get a handle on the demeanor and subtle nuances of a foreign sense of humour that comes with being violent uprooted to another country, but then the movie twists it more by keeping things as unconventional as it can – and things don’t come more unconventional than Dan Stevens’ Herr König.
While 2024 will no doubt have its rogue’s gallery of expansive performances when the year is out, it would be a major crime if Stevens’ massively entertaining performance isn’t counted among them, as his knowing stint as König captures the amusingly unsettling tone of the film perfectly. While he stops short of winking directly at the camera (but only just), his flamboyant accent, piecing blue eyes and his penchant for occasionally blasting out a little tune on a little wooden recorder hints massively that something sinister is going down on his watch. It isn’t particularly subtle, but it is tremendously entertaining and it meshes nicely with Hunter Shaffer’s perpetually creeped out lead.
There’s something incredibly refreshing about the film’s reluctance to adhere to horror norms and the fact that our endearingly androgynous lead isn’t your typical horror starlet is enhanced by the fact that the movie insists on having her literally crippled by a chunky head bandage and a hefty arm cast after an accident early in the film – but even with one arm, Shaffer cuts quite the butterfly knife wielding figure when the script starts to lean heavily into its themes of sisterhood and the nature of family.
Some may complain that the “monster” of the film just isn’t monstery enough, but the sheer audacity of a movie that has its central creature dress like middle-aged Karen in autumn just adds to the fun for me and it almost feels like Roald Dahl wrote a trashy, 70s euro-horror that drew inspiration from The Witches. The fact that the film deliberately keeps you at arms length when regarding its twists makes them all the more surprising when they occur and although the final third closes off the mystery elements with an ever shifting array of allegiances, it never loses its gleefully quirky edge.
Those looking for straight forward scares will no doubt be flummoxed and frustrated by Cuckoo’s off beat approach to monster movie making, those with a healthy appetite for large dollops of weird will no doubt be overjoyed that Singer’s strange little opus has decided to infiltrate their nest and make itself at home.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: well and truly Cuckoo.
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