What This Wild Horror Movie Is *Actually* About | Cuckoo, Explained

Intro cuckoo the new horror movie starring euphoria's Hunter schaer and Abigail's Dan Stevens has proven to be one of the weirdest movies of the Year while the film has been flying under the radar it actually has a lot of interesting things going on in addition to being a fun watch it manages to use its frightening wild otherworldly dark fairy tale to unpack some surprisingly deep themes so let's take a deeper look at cuckoo's story symbolism and ending to analyze what the movie is really trying to tell us the film written and directed by The premise Tilman singer follows Hunter schaer's Gretchen as she navigates grieving her recently deceased mother and having to move to the other side of the world to live with her father stepmother and little sister though Gretchen is initially adamant that Beth is not a mother figure to her and Alma is not her sister the family has come to a resort in the German Alps where her father and stepmother plan to help Mr kig build a new section of the resort the vibe is immediately off but Gretchen just assumes it's part of her General desire to not be there and no one else seem seems to notice anything at all I think there's a real sort of fairy tale quality to the to the world that Tilman set up here this sort of like seemingly beautiful Alpine Resort and and you know maybe it's just a Holiday Village um it's not Gretchen is made to feel like she's not only unwelcome but in the way a burden to everyone around her strange occurrences begin almost immediately from zombie likee women stumbling around the hotel to a terrifying screeching sound that seems to bend a time when Gret ignores Mr koenig's plea to lock up the hotel by 10: p.m. sharp and stay inside to instead ride her bike home she encounters a whole new horror which sets off a fight for her life as the adults around her downplay or straight up ignore the danger she must find a way to free herself from the cage they've created and save more than just herself in the process before we Analyze That ending though let's unpack some of the most important and interesting symbolism in the movie only being 17 Gretchen Analyzing the symbolism doesn't own much and was only able to bring a few things with her in the move Gretchen's knife but one of the most key things is her butterfly knife she carries it with her everywhere she goes allowing her to feel like she has some degree of protection from the world around her the knife feels like an extension of her and Hunter Schaefer actually spent years getting comfortable with butterfly knives so that the connection would feel effortless and lived in on screen I had like a long time to prep and the first thing tomman sent me was a butterfly a a fake butterfly knife to practice with we Cuckoo birds & family bonds see the knife continually get lost or taken away from her a metaphor for how people keep trying to control her and take away her agency and after she's injured in a wreck that occurs as she tries to flee the resort with a French guest and ends up with only one usable arm the knife becomes integral to her survival thematically the film analyzes the justos between different kinds of family bonds Gretchen and her family being the most obvious but we quickly come to find out there's more going on than initially meets the eye it's revealed that Mr kig is working to preserve an ancient creature who reproduces by parasitically implanting her eggs into an unsuspecting human woman if she survives the encounter when she goes on to get pregnant it will then be the creature's egg that gets fertilized and produces one of its own mysterious Offspring singer got the idea from a documentary he watched now it wasn't in the best mental space back then and then I watched a documentary about the cuckoo bird and how they breed the cuckoo birds will lay their eggs in other birds nests so that when the baby cuckoo birds are born those other birds will raise them as their own the movie's creatures do something similar except in this case she is very desperate to be reunited with her Offspring it's revealed that Alma is the result of this breeding and that's the reason that Mr kig is so interested in her it's through all of these connections that the film Works to unpack the relationships formed by different kinds of bonds biological versus surrogate versus chosen the mother creature has a primal urge both to create more offspring and to find her children and it's thought that being in close proximity to the mother creature will make The Offspring stronger we also see how it affects the surrogate mother as Beth fearfully tries to figure out what is harming her daughter but becomes mentally shaken as the mother creature grows nearer in this dark fairy tale Beth is initially framed as a bit of an evil stepmother but we come to see that she's really just cracking under the pressure of feeling like she's not able to protect her daughter I totally understand where Beth's coming from I don't see her as an evil step mother I see her as a woman at her wits end really trying to do what's best for her daughter the most important familial bond in the film though ends up being that of chosen family while Gretchen initially rebuffs Alma's attempts at connection she comes to realize that she does really care about her and that she's pretty much the only person here she can really trust another major theme Men's desire for control of the film is the male need to control women and female creatures because they feel that they need to be in charge of their lives to save them the kind of the idea of like this sort of weird man who shows up in people's lives in the middle of a forest and dark things happen Mr koic says that his work is Preservation and the only way to keep the creature from going extinct but pays no mind to what it means that doing so means impregnating multiple unaware and unconsenting women the idea of like a a very devoted scientist who sort of very purely committed to their craft and to the project and how sort of blinkered you could be to the the the sort of the horrors that you're you're creating he doesn't see the human women as people just like he doesn't see the creatures as beings deserving of respect to him they're all just Curiosities to be kept and controlled for his own personal Amusement he's willing to sacrifice whoever and whatever is required to continue his goal goal of breeding more of the creature this desire for control plays out with the other male characters as well Gretchen's father sells her home in America without telling her making sure to note that it's actually his house and Henry the disgraced police officer who has come back to the resort to get revenge for his wife who was killed by the creature says that he will protect Gretchen as they work to stop Dr Koenig but really he's more interested in using her for his own ends there are Languages a number of languages used throughout the film English German French and sign language this is a function of the Resort's location but is also used by the film as a way to symbolize the different ways characters are connected and disconnected only speaking some or one of the languages means not being able to understand everything that's going on around them and not always being able to communicate in the way they'd like Alma is able to use a text to speech machine on occasion but often seems to prefer to use sign language and not have that technological interface between herself and the person she's speaking with but we also see how this kind of connection via technology can be important in the voicemails that Gretchen leaves on her mother's old answering machine and the voicemail that Alma leaves trying to help Gretchen in the end Gretchen and Alma are able to solidify their bond in a signed conversation where they truly connect for the first time the film plays with Shifting & breaking time the concept of time in a number of ways stylistically the film runs the gamut from' 7s Interiors to ' 80s clothes to Modern devices this serves to get get across how the problems presented aren't born out of any one moment but a continuous issue across time the creature herself is also able to affect time causing time warps with her screeches that bend and even seem to break time itself trapping her victims in an inescapable time Loop aware that something is wrong but not being able to do anything to free themselves or stop it Alma is able to harness this power too though and at just the right moment The ending explained the film ends with Gretchen essentially having to survive a Boss Arena to save herself and her sister after being rescued from Mr koenig's pool housee bird bunker she and Henry go to the hospital to confront Mr koic who Henry had earlier shot but did not double tap and so he's back for another round Gretchen realizes that while Henry is fine with saving her he has no plans to save Alma and in fact wants to get rid of her in his effort to eradicate all of the creatures stabbing him she's able to escape and get to Alma and here we can see how Gretchen's view of Al has changed as she helps her slip on her little sandals before they make their escape in addition to Henry and Dr Koenig they also have to run from the mother creature who has come for Alma Gretchen pretends to threaten Alma to keep the creature at Bay but Alma not realizing this as part of a plan becomes fearful and runs away Gretchen has to play hide-and-seek with the mother creature until Henry comes in and pushes over the shelves onto both of them and apparently not having learned his lesson doesn't make sure she's actually dead which of course she isn't Gretchen is able able to get her knife at the last moment and take out the creature herself before running off to save Alma from the men Elma is at first fearful of Gretchen but they have a heart-to-heart and cement their sisterly Bond they're able to make it out of their predicament by using each man's desire against them Mr kig wants Elma alive and Gretchen dead and Henry the reverse so Gretchen orients their exit so that neither man can kill one of the girls without taking them both out as they reach the door it seems like one or both of the men might just go ahead and take them both out out so that he can at least get half of what he wants and it's almost turned to save the day when she covers Gretchen's ears and uses her creature powers to emit a screech that incapacitates both men long enough for them to escape they're able to make it out and find the French guest and make another break for it this time safe together the film does leave some open questions where did the creatures even come from and why do they look so human what happened to the parents are Mr coning and Henry both actually dead where did the French lady get a new car after her first one was total but it doesn't really need to answer every single question because of its nature as a fairy tale the point isn't to understand every little thing on a granular level but to take in The Wider Story the film is trying to tell cuckoo So... is it worth seeing? doesn't really reinvent the Wheel by any means and if you're at all a horror fan you won't really be surprised by any of the reveals but the film is a really fun weird time and honestly it's nice that it just focuses on telling the story it wants to tell instead of constantly trying to subvert expectations Hunter schaer is a great final girl and overall the film is an enjoyable Creepy Ride that's worth flocking out to see that's the take click here to watch the video we think you'll love or here to check out a whole playlist of awesome content don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications