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InCuckoo, Hunter Schafer, best known forher turn as Jules Vaughn in Euphoria, stars as Gretchen, an American teenager forced to move to a resort in the German Alps with her father Luis (Marton Csokas), stepmother Beth (Jessica Henwick), and mute half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu) after her mother dies. The film had its world premiere at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival on Jul 24, 2025 and was released in the United States on July 03, 2025. Reviews have been generally positive, with special attention given to Schafer andDan Stevens' performances.
The film was written and directed by German filmmaker Tilman Singer.Cuckoois Tilman’s second film. His first,Luz(not to be confused withThe Owl Housecharacter of the same name), premiered in 2018.Luzwas Tilman’s thesis film project.Variety described itas “modestly scaled yet slick and conceptually audacious enterprise [that] commands attention.” The same could be said of Tilman’s sophomore feature.
What is Cuckoo About?
Not too long after her arrival, Gretchen becomes disturbed by strange occurrences happening around the resort. Alma is having seizures, women are vomiting in the resort lobby, and worst of all, Gretchen is being chased byThe Hooded Woman, whose eerie demeanor ismade even creepier by her red eyes. The longer Gretchen stays at the resort, the more frightened she becomes, and she especially becomes suspicious of Mr. König (Dan Stevens), the owner of the resort who invited her family to stay in the first place. After a horrific car crash that injures Gretchen and her love interest Ed (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) Gretchen teams up with Henry (Jan Bluthardt), an ex-detective, who suspects The Hooded Woman haunting Jules has committed at least one murder and things only get weirder from there.
Gretchen and Henry stake outone of the resort’s cottages, The Lover’s Nest, where they see The Hooded Woman attack Gretchen’s front desk coworker Trixie (Greta Fernández) and then attempt to implant her with some kind of mysterious slime. Gretchen tries to confront König in front of her family, but she is dismissed and seen as a nuisance, especially since Alma has been hospitalized. Later, König tells Gretchen that he’ll drop her off at a train station to run away, but entraps her in his own house instead. This is where the film takes a decided turn. König reveals that The Hooded Woman ispart of a humanoid speciesthat relies on brood parasitism, or implanting their eggs into a surrogate. (This is a similar practice to the titular cuckoo bird, although that obviously involves eggs in nests, rather than slime.) When the child is of age, the mother will return to claim their child and continue to raise them as their own. König attempts to have another humanoid impregnate Gretchen, using a flute to hypnotize her. Thankfully, Henry arrives and saves Gretchen. Together, the two race to the hospital to find Alma.
How DoesCuckooEnd?
As it turns out, Alma is really The Hooded Woman’s daughter. The Hooded Womanimplanted her into Bethwhile Beth and Luis were staying at the resort on their honeymoon. This explains why Alma cannot speak. Like the rest of her species, she is only capable of disorienting, looping shrieks. König and his accomplice, Dr. Bonomo (Proschat Madani), are determined to reunite Alma with her “true” mother, so that The Hooded Woman can raise Alma as part of her species. Both Gretchen and Henry want to put a stop to this, but unfortunately, it becomes clear to Gretchen that he not only intends to kill The Hooded Woman, but Alma as well. Gretchen tries to protect Alma, but Alma misunderstands Gretchen’s intentions and flees. In a stand-off in a library, Gretchen fatally stabs The Hooded Woman and eventually reconnects with Alma to tell her that she would never hurt her. The two then make a plan to escape Henry and König.
At Its Heart, Cuckoo is About Sisterhood
Cuckooasks a lot of its audience in terms of suspension of disbelief, but the emotional core of the film is sound. In the beginning, Gretchen is quick to dismiss Alma as her sister because Alma is Luis’s daughter from a new marriage and is irritated by Alma’s inability to speak. Gretchen isconsumed by her own grief at her mother’s deathand regularly calls her mother’s answering machine as a way to connect with her and express her frustrations. When it’s revealed that Luis sold her mother’s house and only had one box of belongings sent back to Germany, Gretchen is furious. Then she finds out that Alma left a message on the answering machine, using text-to-speech, asking for Gretchen’s mother to come and visit because she misses her. (Alma does not realize that Gretchen’s mother has died.) This is the turning point in their relationship. If there’s one person left in Gretchen’s family that cares about her, it’s Alma.
This is why Gretchen goes out of her way to protect Alma at the end of the film. The two embrace as they walk by Henry and König as they point guns at each other. In this way, Gretchen protects Alma from Henry who wants to shoot her since she’s a bird humanoid and Alma protects Gretchen from König, who sees Gretchen as standing in his way. In the end, Alma saves the day when she puts her hands over Gretchen’s ears, protecting her before she lets out the same kind of shriek The Hooded Woman used. This disorients Henry and König long enough for the girls to escape and for the men to shoot each other. The two sisters meet a still hospital gown-clad Ed andfinally drive away from the resort.
Cuckoomight be a little wacky with its bird woman insemination plot, but it delivers great scares and its heart is in the right place. Throughout the film, Gretchen becomes more accepting of her little sister and chooses her just as she is, the way Alma always wished she would. Sometimes, a family is a teenager, her older European girlfriend, and an avian brood parasite child and that’s beautiful.
