Cuckoo (2024)

August 9, 2024 9:38 AM

A 17-year-old girl is forced to move with her family to a resort where things are not what they seem.

Written & Directed by Tillman Singer (Luz)

Starring...
Hunter Schafer (Kinds of Kindness, Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Euphoria)
Dan Stevens (Abigail, Godzilla vs Kong, Legion, Downton Abbey)
Marton Csokas (Sleeping Dogs, The Last Duel, Into the Badlands)
Jessica Henwick (Glass Onion, Matrix Revolutions)
Mila Lieu (Dodger)

posted by kokaku (16 comments total)

First off, I loved this. Didn't find it particularly surprising, but it was genuinely scary, well crafted and acted. I can't really think of any flat spots or notes (except for one spoilery question that I'll hold onto until there's some discussion going).

Also, it's funny to me that there's two similar horror pieces named Cuckoo with trans connections in one year. Trans horror writer Gretchen Felker-Martin's book is excellent. And now we have this, starred by trans actress Hunter Schafer, who coincidentally plays a character named Gretchen.
posted by kokaku at 9:54 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

The first half of this was completely delightful in an I-did-not-have-the-vaguest-idea-what-was-happening kind of way. The second half was a very solid monster movie that tied up all loose ends.

I was both impressed that they managed to sew everything up like that, but also ever so slightly disappointed that the WTFery of the first half had to end.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:42 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

One other note: I know that influences trend just like anything else, but it still struck me when--during a segment where our final girl was dripping Crayola red blood and investigating things with a disheveled, kind of suspicious man claiming to be a detective--how giallo vibes pop up in everything these days.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:06 PM on August 9 [1 favorite]

Totally. And I have to say, the double door gag was a solid tension release.
posted by kokaku at 5:44 PM on August 9 [1 favorite]

Just saw it and liked it a lot - I'm not a fan of horror that relies on jump scares, unexpected twists, and characters making stupid decisions, and for the most part this film avoided those tropes. After the end, I almost think the opening introduction and voice over were not needed, it seemed to not trust the audience will follow along and needed something to reference back to.

Without spoiling too much, I was somewhat confused about...

spoiler question

who left the voicemail that is referenced in the climactic scene... It is implied it was left by a person without the ability to do so.

posted by AzraelBrown at 7:52 PM on August 9

Alma did it, using the voice assist she uses a few times in the movie, most prominently to speak German to Herr König.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:16 PM on August 9 [1 favorite]

Aha - thanks dirtyoldtown! I figured I had overlooked something, it seemed too significant to be a plot hole.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:40 PM on August 9

The big question I had...

Spoiler

How did König survive his encounter with the former policeman in Gretchen's room? It looked like he got shot pretty solidly.

posted by kokaku at 1:34 AM on August 10 [1 favorite]

my answer for kokaku's question

I think there's a bit of plot armor there, but when the other doctor said "you're bleeding", they showed he was bandaged on his ribs under his left arm, so I think he was hit in the chest but it grazed him. The shootout at the end shows how bad a shot the inspector is, though, that shot was from the top of the pool probably 20-30 feet away, but the only times the Inspector successfully hit anything he was almost point blank, which is actually pretty realistic as far as movie gun play goes.

posted by AzraelBrown at 5:31 AM on August 10 [1 favorite]

This is something I say a lot, but here goes again:

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO AVOID SPOILERS ON FANFARE.

Avoiding spoilers on FF would be like avoiding spoilers in a book club. It would make discussion somewhere between awkward and impossible.

There *IS* a highly informal tradition to avoid spoilers in the very first comment or two, on the grounds that someone who hasn't seen the thing might want to dip a toe in. Not at all a rule.

But you absolutely do not under any circumstances, by any standards, formal or informal, real or imagined, have to avoid spoilers this far down in a thread.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:25 AM on August 10 [10 favorites]

It's not clear to me why Cousin Matthew killed his assistants, but I sure did love the crap out of him playing the flute when things started to go south.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:55 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]

I think he killed them because he saw this particular operation as what intelligence operatives refer to as "blown." Too many elements were ruined and/or exposed and he felt his best move was to destroy things/kill people that could connect to him.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:56 AM on August 12 [2 favorites]

I liked this, but I found that I liked the first half or so a lot more (before we get the big exposition dump and move into a more actiony mode).

It didn't really affect my liking of the film either way, but this is kind of a dumb and way too elaborate way to go about secretly breeding homo cuculidade. If I was Herr König I'd probably set up a front at a fertility clinic or something, instead of just nabbing random vacationers.
posted by whir at 6:23 PM on August 18

I didn't quite understand who Alma's biologic mother was supposed to be. She looks like the step-mother Beth (Jessica Henwick) but I thought the whole plot was that the Hooded Woman (Kalin Morrow) was procreating using Beth as surrogate, which would make the Hooded Woman the biologic mother, except Alma looks nothing like her.
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 1:50 PM on August 23

I think the cuckoo babies took on their birthing parents appearance... because... monster genetics.
posted by kokaku at 4:40 AM on August 24

Gretchen's tolerance for weird-ass Euro-shit was way higher than mine is. Ok, you're seventeen, and maybe you've never left the US before, BUT TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS GRETCHEN your dad is literally gaslighting you and Herr bester-freund is a sleazy creep. That's not ok in any country.

Also, I noticed two little red eyes peering out from the forest during the earliest howling on the wind sequence so appreciated when that paid off later.
posted by Molesome at 1:30 AM on September 19