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Review: ‘Cuckoo’ — A Tiresome Horror Mystery Devoid of Originality
Tilman Singer’s second feature is a massive slog despite its genre-blending efforts
The first twenty minutes or so of Cuckoo show great promise. A scintillating mystery is beginning to brew, it has a fun and distinct setting in the Alps, a fascinating and charismatic villain-to-be in Dan Stevens’ super rich Herr Konig and even a visual style which is vibrant, colourful and engaging. Hunter Schafer’s teenaged character Gretchen is intriguing and well acted. Everything seems set for an entertaining and original thriller/horror/mystery, a rarity in modern cinema.
But by its final act, I frankly couldn’t wait for Cuckoo to end. Its story, revolving around Schafer’s Gretchen who has moved to a resort in the Alps with her father following the death of her mother, is good at provoking mystery but terrible at unfolding it after that. Because of this, writer and director Tilman Singer (making his second feature film following his 2018 thesis project Luz) can only make an exciting first act followed by a complete and utter mess — Cuckoo is really intriguing throughout its first thirty minutes as it shows Gretchen’s grief and her struggles to adjust to her new setting while also starting to establish the threat of the surrounding area with some subtle (and some…
