Last weekend, the new horror film Cuckoo hit cinemas in the UK. It received some great reviews at festivals and on its US release earlier this month. It also stars big-name stars like Hunter Schafer (Euphoria hit) and Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey). But you probably haven’t seen it.
And that’s not your fault. Cuckoo has spread its wings in UK cinemas without much fanfare, thanks to lackluster advertising and a disappointingly short release. Stevens himself called out the film’s distributor in an Instagram story last week, writing: “Just a reminder to @focusfeatures to release CUCKOO in UK cinemas tomorrow…”
Stevens is right to be a little annoyed. I remember seeing trailers for Cuckoo months ago, complete with lavish quotes from festival reviews praising its originality and insanity. But those trailers stopped showing long before this week, allowing the excitement to wane just when it should have been at its highest.
Not to mention the fact that the closest theater that showed the film in its first week of release was a half hour drive away, even though I live in a relatively sized city. That theater only showed one showing, in a small auditorium, and at the latest possible time. It felt like the film was being buried.
Box office analyst Comscore told Yahoo today that Cuckoo has so far grossed a paltry £154,000 in UK cinemas from 215 locations. That’s just over £700 per location. The previous weekend, the re-release of Coraline – a 15-year-old film – grossed just under eight times Cuckoo’s total.
Read more: Hunter Schafer doesn’t like being called a “scream queen” (BANG Showbiz)
You should really have some sympathy for Focus Features in this regard, because Cuckoo is a film that is a tough sell. Writer-director Tilman Singer’s first English-language film is utterly and defiantly uncategorizable, escalating from simply bizarre in the first act to completely insane by the time the credits roll.
The story begins with Schafer’s character Gretchen travelling to a remote German resort with her father, stepmother and half-sister. Gretchen is reluctant to do any of this, having only recently moved back in with her father following the death of her mother. The resort’s mysterious boss, Mr Koenig – Stevens, who pokes fun at the scene with his outrageous accent – gives her a job, but things soon get out of hand. Gretchen’s sister starts having fits and she herself is being stalked by a terrifying hooded woman.
Read more: “Cuckoo” is Hunter Schafer’s new horror film. “Batshit” would be a better title (Rolling Stone)
If that sounds absurd, it’s just an amuse-bouche for the sheer anarchy of the final act, where the true meaning of that title becomes clear. There’s plenty of blood, a convoluted supernatural myth that’s still somehow opaque despite plenty of explanations, and plot twists that recall the grotesque early works of David Cronenberg in his heyday in the 1970s and 1980s.
Admittedly, not all of it works. Singer cranks the insanity dial up a few notches too far, and only the believable determination of Schafer’s excellent performance keeps the train on the tracks at all. But for the first hour or so, Cuckoo is simply a rock-solid horror film, with some truly spine-tingling jump scares and a palpable atmosphere of unease that screams, “Something is fucking wrong here.”
With that in mind, its almost silent UK release is very disheartening. In a summer full of mega-blockbusters from major franchises, Cuckoo is a rare example of a completely unique film that’s willing to fly its freak flag in the best possible way, for better or for worse. It deserves to find an audience of gaming horror fans.
Read more: Cuckoo review: Hunter Schafer is a horror heroine with dry humor for the ages (The Independent)
And indeed, the film will almost certainly find that audience. In about six months, when Cuckoo lands on one of the major streaming platforms, people will stumble upon it by accident and discover its strange secrets. Entertainment websites around the world will be publishing articles about how a “crazy new horror movie is making waves on Netflix.”
That film will be called Cuckoo, and it will finally be appreciated by those whose tastes are offbeat enough for it. Cuckoo is not just a title; it is a statement of intent.
Cuckoo is now in cinemas in the UK and US.
