‘Cuckoo’ Elevates Hunter Schafer as an Angsty Fearless Final Girl

This year has been a mixed bag at the movies so far. We’ve had box office sequel juggernauts (a positive) but the worldwide top 10 box office movies are all sequels (a negative). We’ve had a rising star (Glen Powell; Hit Man, and Twisters) and indie darlings (Vera Drew’s crowdsourced The People’s Joker and Dev Patel’s Monkey Man) but misses from prominent filmmakers (Alex Garland’s Civil War and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness). The summer slate is no exception.

Cuckoo continues a trend this summer where one actor outshines a middling film: Nic Cage in Longlegs, Hugh Jackman in Deadpool & Wolverine, Josh Hartnett in Trap, and now Hunter Schafer (Euphoria) playing leading lady/final girl Gretchen in Cuckoo. Don’t get me wrong, these films have found an audience and have had success. However, those four actor’s performances are the best parts of their respective films to make them, at the least, worth watching.

Cuckoo follows a family as they move to a resort town in the German Alps to help build a resort town. Quickly, daughter Gretchen suspects something nefarious is afoot. The moment Gretchen arrives, she immediately wants to run away and decides to work at the resort’s convenience store to get enough money to leave. One night after leaving work, on a dark and gloomy road, she is attacked by a hooded woman. When she reports the attack, the incident is seemingly dismissed by the police and her family. The rest of the film follows Gretchen and a detective as they try to uncover the mystery of the hotel.

To keep the review spoiler-free, Cuckoo is worth the watch for fans of the sci-fi horror genre but there are gaps. The big bad is creepy but the apparatus they use for attack, which is a sonar-like scream meant to both see and stun their prey, is a bit confusing and hard to figure out at first. Still, it’s visually interesting. The real draw is Schafer’s performance. As the final girl, she delivers emotional weight and pissy teen angst to fuel her character. Gretchen is brat enough to question her motives but vulnerable enough to make you like her. Schafer balances and elevates Gretchen while the rest of the film is a bit too flat with characters that are too familiar.

Dan Steven (Abigail) plays Herr König, the resort’s owner. While Steven relishes playing the possible foil to our hero, with dubious stares and a villainously thick German accent (this is not a slight; Stevens is good and König seems very fun to play), the film may leave you confused about who the actual bad guy is. The story does fine in the science fiction department, but horror fans may be left wanting more blood and terror. Gretchen does get treated like a rag doll (her head is bandaged on the poster art for a reason) but there may not be enough scares for someone looking for a good fright.

In a very average movie year, Cuckoo does not separate itself from the pack. Yet, it is a solid film with characters and moments to enjoy. Writer and director Tilman Singer does an adequate job of putting the pieces together. As a German filmmaker, his taste aligns with European horror which is a bit more supernatural and lowkey than standard American horror. If you are a fan of Oddity, Cuckoo will be up your alley. 

The best of Cuckoo is that it is a testament to Hunter Schafer as a leading actress. Her rise to fame through Euphoria may be a bit of a double-edged sword: with the show’s melodramatic and gaudy storylines, it can be difficult to know if she can play characters closer to reality (even in a sci-fi horror film). But Schafer flexes great talent in playing a three-dimensional character and is off to a great start in her young career. And let Dan Stevens continue to play freaks. He is too good at it.

Cuckoo is now streaming in theaters.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars