Strange noises fill the crisp nighttime air in a small Alpine village: Avian shrieks and some wild beast a-rustling in the hedgerows – or are those the screams of a desperate woman?
Into the strange, scary, funny world of Cuckoo comes a British-American family that has upped sticks and packed the entire household – dad, stepmom, and little daughter – to rural Bavaria, where the father will be renovating the local spa-resort.
Dragged along is the dad’s elder daughter from a previous marriage. That’s Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), a gangly punk rocker, yearning for her California home and her old bandmates. (Gretchen’s tearful messages to her faraway mom punctuate the film’s opening and gain poignant significance as we learn her history.)
The film’s writer-director, Tilman Singer, teases us with the oddities of this isolated, ominously named setting of Alpenschaffen, a mix of chalets and mid-century modern glass houses. The town’s only two attractions are a nature sanctuary and the small hotel, both owned by one Herr König (Dan Stevens, pictured below), a species “preservationist” who eyes Gretchen like a potential prize specimen.
In his hypnotic voice, Stevens (performing in English and German) drawls the first syllable of the heroine’s name (“Graaaaaayt-chen”) in a manner both courtly and perverse. And like a naughty forest faun, he sometimes plays a little bird-call flute, bidding all creatures to join him: he’s hilariously, affably evil.
Standing against him, Gretchen’s on her own: she’s overlooked by her architect father (Marton Csokas) and shunned by his young wife (Jessica Henwick, swathed in white fluffy jumpers that make her look like a downy swan-chick). Prevented from going home, Gretchen’s furious – and curious, too.
The rocker-heroine warily accepts Herr Konig’s job offer to work the day shift at the hotel’s front desk, where she reveals to a co-worker that sweet little Alma “ate her twin” while in utero (“It’s called vanishing twin syndrome”). The co-worker shrugs, “Ugh. Another reason not to have children.”
Then Gretchen ignores a warning to never, ever venture out after dark. Biking home at night, wearing headphones, she’s pursued, then attacked, by a masked woman, but nobody believes her. Everybody here is under Herr König’s spell.
When Alpenschaffen’s chorus of bird-screams entrance then sicken Gretchen's little half-sister, Alma (Mila Lieu), it sends everyone into some sort of time loop. Gretchen – sealed off by her over-ear headphones – is slow to notice, either because she’s grooving to the basslines in her head, or because she’s fallen for a hotel guest (Astrid Berges-Frisbey). After a man who claims to be a detective draws Gretchen into a secret mission, Schafer (a standout in HBO's Euphoria) truly emerges to make the character a heroine and herself a film star.
Stevens, who became famous as a floppy-haired dreamboat on Downton Abbey and even more famous for leaving the show, continues to impress with his choice of wildly divergent roles, From his work in The Apostle and The Guest to the Eurovision romp Fire Saga, he’s proven himself a charismatic leading man who refuses to be categorized.
Cuckoo, meanwhile, more than lives up to its title. Despite a few shameless jump-scares, it's this season's unexpected interloper – a sophisticated, entertaining horror film with an offbeat sense of humour. It’s “Greaaaaaaat”-chen.
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