A fragile family’s underlying fractures can’t help but deepen as the cracks are nurtured by the maddening seclusion of an ominous mountainside hotel; yes, this is a one-sentence summation of “The Shining,” but it more or less fits Tilman Singer’s sophomore film “Cuckoo (2024)” to a tee. There are, of course, deeply rooted differences between Stanley Kubrick’s psychologically straining masterpiece and Singer’s patience-straining horror offering. But one overlapping concept that the German filmmaker does at least understand is that something truly unsettling can be gleaned from the septic corridors of a rented living space—a milieu intended to be a home away from home but always remain just personally external enough to have you questioning your own place within it.
That’s just about the most subtle idea “Cuckoo” has at play, which would explain why Singer can have none of that pesky nuance before drowning out his scares in a cacophony of garish squeals and equally garish performances. Herein lies the inherent issue with the director’s vision, as “Cuckoo” is all too willing to lean into the silliness of its premise without enacting the sort of consistency required to give that absurdity any sense of gravity. Well, that and how literally the film decides to take its titular metaphor.
That “Shining” connection is obviously not a 1:1 comparison, as “Cuckoo” follows Gretchen, an American child forced into her father’s new family as they venture to the Bavarian Alps for a business venture at a yet-to-be-finished resort. (Hunter Schafer plays Gretchen, whose own confusion at Singer’s tonal register makes all of her lines sound like they’re being phonetically channeled through an actor who’s never spoken English before.)
Unfortunately, this particular Bavarian landscape won’t be home to any Werner Herzog sightings, but instead, Dan Stevens as the estate’s eccentrically stiff overseer. As the inherent creep factor of this environment and all of its seemingly half-dead occupants sinks in, Gretchen’s spirited demeanor becomes all too willing to shrivel away at the slightest echo of the cuckoo’s call.
As seems to be the tradition for horror films in 2024, “Cuckoo” finds increasing difficulty as its runtime progresses to manifest any of its promised potential into tangible frights or even solid entertainment. Here, the crux of this issue seems to lie in just how much Singer chooses to lean into the imagery from which his title is borrowed. At the risk of ruining the plot for anyone who spent a more than insignificant amount of their childhood perusing Animal Planet, there’s a particular reason why the cuckoo is chosen as a representation of this film’s looming danger, and once Singer begins to delve into it, the resulting ridiculousness is only matched by the plot’s increasing incoherence.
In the wild, there’s something genuinely unnerving about this particular facet of the animal kingdom. This is, theoretically, a concept that might be able to translate to a human setting if the metaphor is taken as just that: a metaphor. “Cuckoo,” on the other hand, opts to increase the ham factor by literalizing this component in the third act to such an extent that any potential laughs are offset by the swirling questions about what the hell is even going on. Some people would complain when a horror film is too vague with its outlandish ideas, but Singer takes the rare extra step of over-explaining while still leaving you confused—about the motivations of these villains and the motivations of the film as a whole.
Occupying this tonally confused and needlessly dense space is perhaps the only element of “Cuckoo” that seems in any way attuned to the intended atmosphere: Dan Stevens’s merrily unhinged presence. At this rate, calling Stevens “the best part of whatever film he’s in” is becoming less of a compliment to the dynamically charismatic actor and more of an indictment on the increasing stupidity of his oeuvre. That said, there remains a genuine swagger to his robotic presence that adds to the sense of sterilized anxiety mixed with a genuine glee for chewing the scenery that hits that precise sweet spot the film struggles to reach in every other respect.
At a certain point in the film’s third act, Stevens quite literally turns to the camera and tells us, in essence, how lucky we are to be experiencing “Cuckoo” in all its glory. His piercing blue eyes—at once locked-in and lifeless—almost convince us that such a bold assertion is true, but alas, Tilman Singer finds himself just as likely to get lost in the misplaced ecstasy of his own gonzo plotting as he does in the icy peepers of his antagonist. When this “Cuckoo” unleashes its shrill call into these cavernous hallways, all that remains is its own impatient voice bouncing back, with none remaining invested enough to listen.
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