Cuckoo Movie Review: A Neon Nightmare That Can’t Be Expressed

Coming in the wake of leggy and immaculateDirector Tilman Singer Cuckoo This film looks to be the next step in Neon’s plan to dominate this summer of horror. The film’s creepy atmosphere and gorgeous cinematography make it look like it’s ready to capitalize on Hollywood’s current obsession with disturbing movies that only work on scary atmosphere. But despite all the hype and strong performances from its leads, Cuckoo The film suffers from a lack of thematic coherence. It is certainly the strongest horror film Neon has produced recently, but it is not up to the mark.

Located in a corner of the German Alps where few foreigners tend to wander, Cuckoo The film follows American teenager Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) who is forced to move in with her estranged father Louis (Marton Csokas) and his new family. With Gretchen’s beloved bandmates and her prized possessions having returned to the States, Gretchen can’t help but feel alone living with her stepmother Beth (Jessica Henwick) and her stepsister Alma (Mila Leo). While Gretchen makes no attempt to hide her hatred for being uprooted from her hometown by Louis’ job expanding the secluded resort owned by Mr. Koenig (Dan Stevens), she finds comfort only in expressing the depths of her grief in voicemails to her unseen mother.

like Cuckoo The film begins at 11:00 p.m., and Gretchen decides to flee her new home where everyone seems a little uneasy—especially Stevens’ Koenig, who insists that the moody teen work as his receptionist. The way a few of the resort guests wander around in a daze before falling violently ill is enough to make Gretchen suspect that something is amiss. But it’s not until she encounters a screaming woman (Kalin Morrow) that Gretchen realizes that leaving her family behind could be a matter of life and death.

Singer and cinematographer Paul Waltz takes their time adding Cuckoo With a vague sense of dread reminding me Rosemary’s Baby Veronica Franz and Severin Fiala good night momAnother movie about children who don’t trust their parents’ strange behavior. Gretchen is the only person who can see past the picturesque setting of the resort to appreciate how strange everything is in this largely empty, sterile place. After meeting the screaming woman, Gretchen feels increasingly alienated from her family as they struggle to understand (or believe) her confusing version of what happened.

Cuckoo The film uses time loops to leave Gretchen (and the audience) disoriented—one of the film’s more modern tricks that’s made increasingly effective by how awesome these sequences are. Just as the sweat-soaked, horror-filled moments seem to be coming to an end, reality begins to pulse, Cuckoo Throws you back into the heart of Gretchen’s pursuit by…Something. But as that thing got closer and closer to finally getting its hands on Gretchen, Cuckoo The film begins to over-explain itself in a way that leaves the film feeling uncertain about how to unravel its confusing central mystery.

As a series of disturbing chases through the forest, Cuckoo This film is a wonderful showcase of Singer’s ability to evoke feelings of anxiety and tension in the atmosphere and Schafer’s skills as the sword-wielding final girl. But as a story—one that points to ideas about reproductive horror, patriarchy, and a return to nature— Cuckoo The film doesn’t quite cohere in the way it might have if Singer had focused more on narrative coherence than on the annoying story.

In the final act, when the film does everything it can to make Gretchen’s fight for her life seem perilous, Cuckoo The film tries to weave all of its themes together by explaining them. This makes the film seem overly complicated, tangled with ill-considered details that would have been better shown rather than explained.

In Neon’s growing collection of arthouse thrillers, Cuckoo The film stands out as one of the studio’s most original features, and its visual prowess may be enough to convince some horror fans that its last-minute explanatory density is actually a sign of brilliance. But in its astonishing rush to tell you everything that’s on its mind, Cuckoo It ends up revealing itself as a shining example of how films like this one are sometimes better served by doing less.

Cuckoo Also starring Jean Blothardt, Greta Fernandez, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Conrad Singer, and Broschat Madani. The film is in theaters now.