Warning: This post contains spoilers for cuckoo.
If it seems like there’s something shady going on at the remote Bavarian resort run by an overly friendly, almost cartoonishly evil motel owner, there probably is. The importance of trusting your gut is a clear lesson at the heart of Neon’s latest horror offering. cuckooIn cinemas from August 9th.
What this shady business actually is is not so clear.
The screenplay and direction was by the German filmmaker Tilman Singer (Light), cuckoo follows 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), her father Luis (Márton Csókás), her stepmother Beth (Jessica Henwick), and her younger half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu) as they move into a house in the German Alps while Luis and Beth design a new estate for the aforementioned resort owner, Mr. Koenig (Dan Stevens). Involuntarily displaced from her home in America after her mother’s death, Gretchen feels like an intruder in her father’s second marriage. She even tells people that Alma, who is mute, isn’t really her sister.
But after accepting an offer from Mr. Koenig to work at the resort’s front desk, Gretchen finds herself in increasingly bizarre situations – from disoriented female guests vomiting in the motel lobby to a blonde woman (Kalin Morrow) in goggles and a trench coat who stalks her as she rides her bike home one night. When Alma begins having strange seizures – and Mr. Koenig and his friend at the local hospital, Dr. Bonomo (Proschat Madani), take an unusual interest in her – it becomes all too clear that something sinister is afoot.
What’s wrong with the end of cuckoo?
As it turns out, Mr. Koenig is what he calls a “conservationist,” the head of a multi-generational breeding program for… a species of super-powered humanoids with female appearances that behave like cuckoo birds in reproduction and parasitic behavior? The goal of all this is never fully explained and much of the plot is ambiguous, but according to Singer, the story arose from “two mysteries.”
“The first clues I found cuckoo were the Alps and the way cuckoos breed,” he said in the film’s production notes. “The secret feeling they revealed was a mixture of intrigue, sadness and fear. If the mystery excites me at the beginning, I try to connect the clues and create a story. If I work on it long enough, I find the answer to why I carried that feeling in the first place, why it’s important to me; that’s the final secret. I rarely share the final secret for two reasons – it’s usually a private matter, and talking about it too much damages its impact – but once I found out both secrets, I had everything I needed to make a film.”
So if you were hoping Singer would explain the method behind his madness, you’re out of luck.
Gretchen and her friend and enemy, police officer Henry (Jan Bluthardt), eventually discover the truth about what is going on at Mr. King’s resort: those involved in the conspiracy are using the motel as a front to lure couples, seduce them with auditory mind control, and then impregnate the women with crazed humanoids, who are then raised by the couples, just as real cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and leave their young for those birds to raise.
Mr. Koenig and Dr. Bonomo’s interest in Alma stems from the fact that Alma is one of the crazy humanoids and was unknowingly conceived by her parents at the resort years ago. But despite Mr. Koenig and Henry’s attempts to stop Gretchen from saving her sister – and Alma’s biological crazy mother (the blonde who previously stalked Gretchen) trying to kill Gretchen – she ultimately succeeds in thwarting the adults’ plans, gaining Alma’s trust and getting them both out of harm’s way.
How do you interpret the end of cuckoo
cuckoo is definitely an experimental horror film that relies more on creepy atmosphere and tone than on a plot that necessarily makes sense. But according to Singer, he wanted the film to be left up to the audience’s interpretation. In an interview with Hollywood reporterthe filmmaker said that cuckoo could be read as an allegory of “reproductive health” and “the many forms of sisterhood”, it was not the intention “to make extremely concrete points”.
“Both (readings) are true, and of course everyone is welcome to find the meaning they have for themselves,” he said. “For me, it’s about sisterhood, family and the circle of family, whether they’re good or bad. It’s about repeating patterns and generational conflict and love.”
Perhaps cuckoo is meant to convey a message about the importance of women maintaining control over their reproductive rights. Maybe it’s a meditation on the fact that family is what you make of it. Maybe it’s simply a body horror-driven nightmare. Whatever you make of the film, find solace knowing that you are not wrong, even if your feelings are deeply confused.
