2024 | Cuckoo

Director Tilman Singer ( Luz ) has graduated from micro-budget arthouse to a gloriously weird, neon-soaked mainstream horror entry. And trust me: this one is going to split the room right down the middle. Gretchen (a phenomenal Hunter Schafer) is a sullen American teenager forced to move to the German Alps to live with her father, his new wife, and her mute half-sister. They take up residence at a remote, almost comically pristine resort hotel.

That is the world of .

The film is literally named Cuckoo . You will learn to hate that sound. Singer uses infrasound and auditory mimicking to disorient you. By the second act, you won't trust what you hear, and because the film is shot in such wide, empty spaces, you won't trust the silence either. Where It Might Lose You Let’s be honest: This is a "vibes" movie. Cuckoo 2024

Also, the pacing is strange. It lulls you into a bored, teenage stupor for the first 30 minutes—which is intentional, to mimic Gretchen’s mood—but some audiences will check out before the chaos starts. Cuckoo is not The Conjuring . It doesn’t care if you sleep with the lights on. It cares if you feel the sticky heat of a European summer and the cold terror of being trapped in a family that doesn't want you.

If you need a Wikipedia plot summary that explains the monster’s biology, lifecycle, and taxonomical order, you will be frustrated. The rules of the world are loose. The third act gets very abstract and leans heavily into body horror that feels almost like a music video. Director Tilman Singer ( Luz ) has graduated

It is weird. It is loud. It is occasionally incomprehensible.

If you are expecting a straightforward "creature feature," you are wrong. If you are expecting a metaphor for puberty and familial rejection, you are getting warmer. 1. Hunter Schafer is a Final Girl for the ADHD generation. Gretchen is not likable in the traditional sense. She is angry, she is bratty, and she makes terrible decisions. But Schafer plays her with such raw, physical desperation that you cannot look away. She screams like it hurts. She runs like her joints are about to come apart. It feels real . They take up residence at a remote, almost

Go see this in a theater. Turn your phone off. Let the cuckoo sing.