31 Days of Halloween: Cuckoo

2024, Tilman Singer (Luz) -- download

Weird. Everything I had been reading about this movie was that it was the most bizarre thing ever. I guess this would assume nobody has seen anything but the most straight-laced Hollywood movies. It was odd, for sure, but unlike his previous movie Luz, it was actually a mostly straight forward horror thriller. Also weird, I have fonder recollections of watching Luz than my writeup leads me to believe. Much of this season is full of VERY straight forward movies that once watched never come to mind ever again, so I guess its a good thing that I at least remember it making an impression? Old brains are weird.

So we'll go with the lack of thesaurus aspect of that last paragraph as intentional? Yes? Ok then...

Germany; clearly Germany, or at least clearly not US or UK with big picturesque mountains that look so postcard like I wondered if they might be AI generated. But no, just the Bavarian Alps. Gretchen (Hunter Schafer, Euphoria) arrives with her family; technically, she arrives with the moving van, a useful technique to highlight that she stands apart from this family, the daughter of a first marriage now stuck with her dad's new family. They have come to Herr König's (Dan Stevens, Downton Abbey) resort to help him design a hotel. König is creepy-nice, as Dan Stevens does so well, and gives Gretchen a job at the reception desk of his resort, something to put money in her pocket and fill her time.

I mean, it might technically still be AI generated, "Chattie, please generated a photogenic scene of mountains that look like the Bavarian Alps."

Stuff gets weird. Female guests are seen wandering the resort at night, vomiting on things. Nobody cleans up after. König states loudly that the desk is closed down at 10pm and everything must be locked, and Gretchen must not bike home; he will come and drive her home. She ignores him and on her bike-ride home, is followed by a running-faster-than-she-should-be-able hooded woman in weird sunglasses, which frightens Gretchen into running to a nearby hospital; unfortunately she also runs smack into a clear glass door and gets a nasty cut. The police state it must have been a prank.

Meanwhile her dad (Marton Csokas, xXx) is occupied with his daughter Alma who earlier had strange time distorting seizure after hearing weird sounds from the forest. Dad sees all this as Gretchen acting out and is very unfair with her. Gretchen responds by running away with a Parisian woman who stayed a single night in the resort, and stealing all the cash from the resort. They don't get far as the Hooded Woman does the deer-in-headlights thing and they crash. We see the Hooded Woman grab the Parisian Woman and toss her like a ragdoll, just as Gretchen passes out, saved by a mysterious man who shoots at the Hooded Woman.

She awakens to even angrier Dad and "I'm not angry, I'm disappointed" Herr König who seems more annoyed she is upsetting his plans. Yeah, its obvious some sort of machinations are going on here. Gretchen loses it on her father and König, but her father derails her outburst by giving her a box of her remaining belongings from her mother's house -- he has sold it, so she has nothing to return to. Also, confirms that her mother has passed and she has been calling, and leaving messages on an answering machine, for no one and said answering machine is in the box. Gretchen retreats to her room to listen to the sound of her mother's voice and hears an additional message, one from Alma who has called what she assumed was Gretchen's mother to say "Gretchen is very sad, please call her back". When Gretchen comes back out, everyone has gone to the hospital again, another seizure for Alma, but König will drive her to the train station. BUT first a stop by his house so he can give her money for her journey... away.

Yah right. Final act, the exposition, confrontation and conflict ! König has been experimenting with a rare species of .... bird person? Homo cuculidae, of course, the titular cuckoo which is known to leave its eggs in the nests of other birds. He has been using guests at the resort as surrogates for his mute bird ladies, and the mysterious man who saved Gretchen from the Hooded Woman was an ex-cop who lost his wife to this experiment. Said Hooded Woman is the said cuckoo, who disorients people with her call, causing some sort of time loop, likely just a massive déjà vu experience. Just as König is about to have Gretchen "impregnated" (icky goopy stuff from... down there) ex-cop guy escapes confinement and shoots König. Gretchen becomes focused on saving Alma, who is revealed as a cuckoo child, and while the two men shoot it out she is just trying to protect her sister and avoid the Hooded Woman. Luckily the two men kill each other and Gretchen is able to kill the cuckoo mom with Alma's help. Outside, the Parisian Woman appears and they all drive off together.

As said, much of the Internet thought the movie was confusing and really out there. Not so much. But it is weird, and fun, and tense and pretty decently acted. Obviously Singer does lean on the weird with Stevens hamming it up as much as he can, which is something he has been embracing since Legion. I have said it before, if I am engaged, I don't grab my phone, I shift around on the sofa dispersing tension, and this movie definitely had my attention throughout. I also do like that the season has its returning players, and even with the middling movies, I am always keen on exposing myself to their later work, as long as we didn't actively DISLIKE our introduction.