‘Cuckoo’ and Aggravating Tease
This weird horror film gives you a glimpse of a much better one, then refuses to go to there.
NEW STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This newsletter aggressively spoils things.
I have an acquaintance who will watch any film made before the year 2000 and find a way to love it1. He will sneer at recent films that have won awards and changed lives, and spend fifteen minutes talking about some 1947 British cheapie horror flick starring an incredibly bored Boris Karloff as if it rivaled Citizen Kane. I used to be annoyed by this, but now I realize that I’m pretty much the same way, it’s just that the films I defend with my dying breath are all relatively recent horror films2.
Modern-day horror has a sheen of quality to it. Films that would have been half-assed B movies back in The Day are now produced with serious effort and impressive set design, and you can find real actors who actually imbue their demented characters with a modicum of artistry. Case in point: Cuckoo, a movie that feels like it should have the 1970s film grain and cigarette burns of old grindhouse stuff, but instead arrives with slick direction and Dan Stevens’ ludicrous German accent3.
What’s fascinating about Cuckoo, for me, is that it has one incredibly effective and interesting sequence relatively early on, a scene that made me momentarily excited that I was about to watch a film that punched above its apparent weight. And then the film decides to simply never go back to all the great stuff in that scene4.
That’s a Fucking Weird Way to Put It
The story focuses on Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), whose mother has recently died, leaving her to travel with her estranged father Luis (Marton Csokas), his young new wife Beth (Jessica Henwick), and their young daughter Alma (Mila Lieu), Gretchen’s half-sister. Alma is nonverbal, and Gretchen is gentle with her, but is in emotional turmoil in every other way5.
They’ve traveled to a remote resort in the Bavarian Alps, where Luis has been hired to design a new hotel for Herr König (Dan Stevens, delightfully weird6), who he met while on his honeymoon at the resort years before. Gretchen is hired on to work at the existing hotel’s front desk, and observes some strange behavior from the guests. She’s told by Herr König to never go out at night alone, but after her shift one evening she hops on her bike to head home7. Something begins running in the background, vanishing into the woods next to her, and then this happens:
The pacing and editing here is perfect, and the inventive way the pursuer is revealed is great. There’s a propulsive energy, and the sensory limitation—the dark, the flickering shadows, the headphones—all combine to create a tense, effective moment of shock. At this point in the film, I thought I was in for a treat.
I was not.
I Really Want To Come Home. It’s Getting Bad
That’s not to say Cuckoo is a bad film—it’s not a classic, but it’s interesting and well-made, a solid piece of horror fiction. But the rest of the movie abandons the pulse-pounding tension of that scene. The “cuckoos”—a near-human species that uses brood parasitism to reproduce, inseminating human mothers and letting them raise the offspring until puberty, at which point the child’s “cuckoo” nature is activated and they return to their real mother8—never demonstrate that kind of speed and terrifying presence again. The rest of the film unfolds at a more traditional pace, with a lot of creeping about and slow-motion tension9.
None of that is bad, it’s just that it’s so easily compared to that early sequence and found wanting. There are a lot of good, interesting ideas here, but everything just feels sedate after that. And the viewer is primed to see something like that again—it becomes a kind of Chekhov's Gun; we’ve had one Scene Where Super Fast Cuckoo Aliens Scare the Pants Off Me, but what about Second Scene Where Super Fast Cuckoo Aliens Scare the Pants Off Me? And when we don’t get it, all you can feel is disappointment.
One thing that’s not disappointing: Dan Stevens’ German accent and general demeanor of demented joy as he chews the scenery10. Stevens may not be having the career he expected when he ditched Downton Abbey like he was tired of being famous, but he always puts in a solid performance, and he’s always an off-center joy when he turns up in films like this. In fact, all the performances are solid. All it needed as more Fast Cuckoo and it would have been a better film11.
If I traveled to a remote Bavarian resort and a creepy Dan Stevens greeted me using a deranged German accent, I would just turn the car around and drive straight to the airport. But that’s me, a man destined to live until he’s 105 and have zero stories to tell12.
NEXT WEEK: A Quiet Place: Day One has a character problem and a cat problem.
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He also thinks whiskey you purchase by the gallon at a grocery store is perfectly fine, so obviously his opinion is meaningless.
Also Say Anything, for some reason.
I love this accent. This is what AI accent-scrubbing technology like in The Brutalist seeks to steal from us. We must resist.
It’s often true that writers never know which bits of their work are actually great. Half the work I’ve sold was a total surprise to me. My greatest work remains a rap musical I wrote about The X-Files but everyone else seems to think I had some sort of aneurysm when I wrote it, which would be hurtful if I could still feel my body after that 3-day headache I experienced while writing my rap musical about The X-Files.
I pretend to be nonverbal any time I’m out in public. It works!
If Dan Stevens released an album of flute compositions, it’s title would definitely be Delightfully Weird.
I think I’ve attained my relatively old age in large part because when people tell me not to do things I kind of just go along with that. It works!
… to the general relief of some mothers, I am sure. My own sainted mother might not have been too worried if my brother and I had been reclaimed by an eldritch species at the age of 13 or so.
This describes my hungover Sunday mornings, as well. Just sayin’.
Dan Stevens’ general energy in every performance is of a man on whom people hang a sign reading DO NOT ENGAGE while he wanders the grounds of an insane asylum. And I love it.
Did I just coin a new T-shirt slogan: MORE FAST CUCKOO PLEASE? Please say I did.
Mainly because I can’t rememeber anything, including why I started writing this essay or when I launched this newsletter or even why I started typing this footnote.
I'm very confused. Not once does this post mention Andy Samberg's standout performance in the lead role of Cuckoo, nor Taylor Lautner's unexpectedly delightful turn as his secret son.