In 2018, German director Tilman Singer caused a sensation with Lighta film about demonic possession, in several festivals dedicated to genre cinema, including the unmissable Fantasia International Film Festival, where CuckooSinger’s second feature film, recently had its Montreal premiere. Preceded by a more than favorable rumor, the latest offering from the new darling of theelevated horrora term for authorial horror in the style of Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), Ari Aster (Midsommar) or Robert Eggers (The Witch), was certainly expected.
Transforming the idyllic setting of the Bavarian Alps into a place as anxiety-inducing as the Colorado Rockies in Kubrick’s eye, Tilman Singer transports a blended American family into it, including Gretchen (a powerfully inhabited Hunter Schafer), who leaves messages on her mother’s answering machine in vain. Aged 17, Gretchen has reluctantly agreed to follow her father (an underused Marton Csokas), her stepmother (a barely present Jessica Henwick) and her stepsister Alma (a convincing Mila Lieu), a mute girl who soon begins to suffer from epileptic seizures.
PHOTO FELIX DICKINSON, PROVIDED BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Greta Fernandez and Hunter Schafer in a scene from the film Cuckoo
Upon arrival, the family is greeted by the enigmatic Herr König (Dan Stevens, an inspired ham) who offers Gretchen a job at the hotel reception. Attacked by a mysterious woman (Kalin Morrow, terrifying), witness to repeated strange incidents, Gretchen first tries to flee the place in the company of a client who seduced her (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, dark). Then an investigator enters the scene (feverish Jan Bluthardt, seen in Light), who, although he seems enlightened, seems to have guessed the real intentions of Herr König – a character handling the flute in a manner as fearsome as that of the Pied Piper of Hamelinby the Brothers Grimm.
While he mistreats his heroine, both physically and psychologically, Tilman Singer is hardly more tender towards the spectator. In fact, in addition to the appearances of the woman with her shrill screams that would nail the most sensitive to their seats with fright, the director racks his brains in the scenes where the film seems to be shaken by spasms, like little Alma.
Amplified by the blinding light, the haunting soundtrack and the syncopated editing, these scenes, whose images suddenly form a time loop, transform Cuckoo into a veritable sensory nightmare. While the immersive experience is worth the detour, it fails to distract from the storyline, which leaves something to be desired. In fact, while Cuckoo flirts more and more with the body horrorthe more the story, which laboriously mixes German folklore, motherhood and ornithology, gets entangled in the ridiculous and the grand guignolesque.
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Horror drama
Cuckoo
Tilman Singer
With Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Jan Bluthardt
1 h 42