I had a conversation earlier this week with a friend, “Why does Cuckoo work, and Longlegs doesn’t?” was at the heart of what we were discussing. It was easy to feel confused leaving the theater. Tilman Singer’s oddball horror feels about as grounded as the last act of ‘Longlegs’ did, and yet manages to stick the landing while leaving anything that resembles reality far far behind it. During out discussion I hit on the main thing that ‘Cuckoo‘ kept throughout that ‘Longlegs’ struggled with and that’s thematic tone.

‘Cuckoo‘ opens with a family moving to the German Alps, a couple of newlyweds their young daughter, and the fathers teenage girl from his past relationship. As soon as they arrive in the resort where they will be staying at it feels otherworldly. It helps us side with Gretchen, (Hunter Schaefer) as she is livid with being removed from her home in the US, away from her mom, and brought to live in this bizarre environment. It doesn’t feel real at any point, and Gretchen’s constant concern that things are not the way they should be expounds the unsettling nature of the setting.

Accompanying Gretchen’s concerns is her father very off putting yet somehow charismatic boss, Herr Konig (Dan Stevens) who brings together the unsettling in a more threatening yet conscientious way. Stevens is masterful in this performance, one of my favorites from him since ‘The Guest‘. And as the walls of the Gretchen’s family start falling, he reveals himself to be just as threatening as he seemed when you first met him.

Without going into too much detail Gretchen spends her time at the resort that her father is employed at by getting a desk job. She listens to loud music, rides her bike, and makes a new friend. Odd things start happening, including being chased by a bizarre looking woman at night, experiencing a strange series of short time loops, and seeing a woman vomit all over the floor of the lobby she works in. Maybe the German Alps just aren’t for her? I will say this movie was pitched to me as a body horror, and while there is not zero percent chopping and screwing of the human form, I found it very tame when compared to the Ducournaus and the Cronenbergs of our time.

‘Cuckoo‘ is a difficult movie to talk about without giving things away so I’ll continue talking about it in the context of ‘Longlegs’ instead. Both films have to do with the destruction of the family unit, and the things we keep from our parents, specifically our mothers, and the unknowable nature of those relationships. It is always a little scary after all, when you grow up and realize that your parents were, ostensibly, faking it this entire time, simply riffing on what feels like the best choice for themselves and for you. Both films have a menacing male at the center of them that are obsessed with the natural order of the family and want to see what depths they can drag families to. This all sounds great for both movies, except as previously discussed, ‘Longlegs‘ doesn’t hold up as well.

The issue is tone. ‘Longlegs‘ presents itself as very smart hard boiled detective story. It’s the rug pull in the final act that undoes the magic of your average crime thriller. You no longer feel smart for helping the cops solve the crime, because the answer to what was committing the crime was impossibly dumb. But ‘Cuckoo‘ pulls almost the exact same thing off, and it’s because it takes itself one hundred times less seriously from the beginning. When Herr Konig plays a silly little flute towards the beginning of second act, you stop being concerned about solving the mystery. This isn’t something to be solved, it’s something to be entertained by. When Konig makes an incredibly ominous comment to Gretchen’s parents and she says ‘That’s a weird fucking way to put it!” the self awareness of the movie shines. So when the final act happens and the mystery is revealed you don’t feel bamboozled, you simply sit there in awe that a movie could have so much fun taking such a bizarre turn.

4/5