Fantasia Festival Review! Yup, Cuckoo Is An Insane Ride
By Caroline Cao | August 5, 2024 | Celebrity & Culture
You know the old cartoony sight gag of a cuckoo chirping out of the clock? That’s pretty much self-explanatory for a campy yet serious horror like Cuckoo. Yes, it’s thick with a pseudo-philosophical motive for its villain. Yes, Tilman Singer’s script is clunky at times with its emotional involvement. And it’s a rush. The craziness is a delicious recipe.
An American teenager, Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), is installed at a resort that her father and his new wife are constructing. Like any run-of-the-mill teen, she’s in a sour mood. She’s dealing with a new stepfamily and feels her stepsister is getting the adoration and love she’s been deprived of. Hunter Schafer’s downcast side-eyes show a teen at the brink of crumbling down, a kid who would rather disappear into the wind than deal with her new family.
The mysterious resort owner, Mr. König (Dan Steven), offers her a job there. Desperate to acquire the savings to flee this godforsaken Hell, she clocks in bizarre incidents. Sometimes a customer might vomit. Some shadowy figure chases her on her bike. Nurses tell her that this stalker-y, sunglassed monster doesn’t exist. Props also goes to Kalin Morrow as The Hooded Woman, who casts a veil with her expressions and sunglasses. Yes, some of the twists land on the head-scratching shocks rather than a coalesced outcome. Sometimes the screenplay is confusing in not the best ways.
Of course, König has a menacing agenda for this resort. The script is silly, and Steven knows it. He clowns with the Cliff of Camp while creeping the socks out of you. His performance is serious with dollops of goofiness. Tillman’s direction is a mastery of the enclosed environment, wielding an entire scenery for action set pieces.
Because I’m covering Fantasia remotely, I had to view the movie through my laptop. But I suspect that it’s a crowdpleaser in the theater. I could practically hear the gasps mixed in with laughter. It’s a biting cocktail of horror.
