HFC at SXSW ‘24: Avian Garde, or The Cuckoo Review

Note: This review contains spoilers.

Sometimes a film can benefit from having a creator who has no restrictions on their creativity. Of course, in the deep history of cinema, not every filmmaker’s big swing lands. For every George Miller finding critical and financial acclaim for their Mad Max: Fury Road, there’s an Ari Aster befuddling critics and the box office with their Beau is Afraid’. The great thing about big swings is that there’s always something memorable in each one. Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo, which had a packed SXSW “US Premiere” in Austin’s cavernous Paramount Theater, joins the pantheon of movies giving audiences a first-hand glimpse into a filmmaker untethered from studio notes. 

The film begins with a scene displaying two of its main strengths: sound design and visual flair. In a dark house, cinematographer Paul Faltz’s camera slowly moves down a hallway as an unholy sound that’s a mix between a scream, a song, and an animal’s roar overwhelms an argument between two people happening downstairs. The camera soon rests on the image of a girl twitching in a bed, before cutting to her leaving the house and fleeing into the dark woods. It’s a sequence that shakes the ears, dazzles the eyes, and puts the brain’s imagination to work thinking of what all these pieces could lead to.

From there, Singer’s story takes shape through the experience of Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), a 17-year-old American girl who finds herself moving to the picturesque yet isolated German Alps with her father, Luis (Marton Csokas), her young stepmother Beth (Jessica Henwick), and her mute stepsister, Alma (Mila Lieu). As most 17-year-olds who find themselves oceans away from home do, Gretchen mopes around her new digs—despite the place being a snazzy modern glass house surrounded by beautiful scenery. Looking to give her something to do (and also lower the levels of angst in the house), Luis volunteers Gretchen for an open position at the nearby mountain resort owned by the kooky Mr. König (Dan Stevens). It’s at this new job where Gretchen begins to notice strange things: random guests who come into the lobby to throw up and stagger around, a pesky bearded man (Jan Bluthardt) who stares at Gretchen, and eventually, a terrifying blonde woman clad in dark glasses and a raincoat.

Courtesy of NEON / Hunter Schafer in CUCKOO | Credit: Felix Dickinson

For the majority of the first act, Singer sets up Cuckoo as a dreamy fish-out-of-water dramedy about a young girl finding her place among the bizarre people of the new German town she lives in. Stevens, decked in various haute yet simple outfits picked out by costume designer Frauke Firl, is the main comedic scene-stealer, putting on a dastardly cartoon-ish German accent that cues audiences in on whether he’s a good or bad guy. The actor relishes every line of Singer’s dialogue, adding a twinge of malice or overexaggerated “who me?” befuddlement to each word so as to keep with the conniving nature of the character. The production design from Dario Mendez Acosta places the film in a lush, timeless setting. Set decorations range from gaudy hotel wallpaper that feels like it was ripped from the ‘70s to the futuristic yet lifeless transparent abode that acts as Gretchen’s home. Characters use mobile phones one moment, before turning on an analog television the next, and then winding their days down with cassette players.

Even as one begins to wonder where Singer is guiding them in this first act, the supreme visual look and assured world-building keep you glued to the screen. Then the film dives into its true horror during a fateful night bike ride that Gretchen takes alone for no discernable reason. In this scene, Singer unleashes the terror and craziness that will fill the film’s second half.

This night bike scene is masterful on its own, generating the biggest scare of the entire film, thanks to Faltz’s camera rotating around Gretchen as she rides through the black night. When moments of light, whether it be from street lights or her bike’s red brake lights, shine a bit on the surrounding environment, each glimpse of what’s in the darkness winds up the audience before exploding into a screeching reveal of the film’s monstrous antagonists. Where some horror movies face a lessening impact as they reveal their central monster, Singer has the benefit of creating unique beasts that combine man with bird. While the final form of this beast takes a surprisingly restrained look, the smaller details like its red irises and consistently startling “call” make each appearance memorable.

From the initial villain reveal on, Cuckoo shifts into a thriller with an unsettling suspect as Gretchen, as per usual in horror films, finds no one who believes that a mysterious being is chasing her. Following the usual bouts of subtle gaslighting from her father, the town’s doctors, and Mr. König, Gretchen has to solve the mystery of the bizarre pursuer with only her wits and an unsteady alliance with Bluthardt’s silent man. The pair of impromptu detectives lead to another standout scene where Singer and his production team give the monster full observation, showcasing its strange behaviors and tendencies. As the bird beast oozes, shrieks, and bonks people on the head Three Stooges-style, it’s hard not to be impressed with how well Singer toes his creation between absurdity and terror. 

The distinctiveness of Cuckoo’s bad guy is enough to help swallow the script’s ridiculous explanation of its origins in the third act. There’s talk of “reclaiming nature” and the sanctity of cuckoo birds in the villain’s monologue, but it all comes across as a writer’s last-minute effort to have their creatures make sense. But while the origins of the monster come across as science-y mumbo jumbo, it’s nice that Singer commits to his strange world by trying to dig into it deeper. It also helps that the filmmaker eventually says “fuck it” and sends the final 15 minutes of the film into a chase/shoot-out extravaganza that sees Dan Stevens’ character, clad in a very chic white farmer’s coat, blast a conference room apart with an automatic weapon as Hunter Schafer fights off the film’s creature. All these colliding pieces shouldn’t fit, but Singer has put in the work to establish a bizarre world. The combination of gun-toting mad scientists, monstrous bird people, and twitching ears sounds ridiculous, but ultimately all stays true to the off-kilter energy of the film.

Like a great magician (but one of the ones you’d run into in a dark alley at 2 a.m.), Cuckoo awes you with its feats of well-executed craziness. Walking out of the theater, you don’t worry too much about the logistics of the plot as you’re too busy buzzing off the idea that a person decided to make a story like this one. When it comes to his big swing, Singer doesn’t bring a bat; he gleefully whips out a rocket launcher of unrestrained imagination.