EXCLUSIVE
CUCKOO Tilman Singer’s increasingly barmy horror defies sanity – and that’s a good thing…
Idon’t think I’m that good making sane, normal stuff,’ says German director Tilman Singer. ‘I don’t think I could really do it. And I don’t think it would work really well.’ For anyone who saw Singer’s ‘abstract’ 2018 demonic debut Luz, that must surely be a relief. Likewise, his sophomore film Cuckoo doesn’t disappoint on the batshit-crazy-o-meter – it’s a reproductive chiller that channels the likes of David Cronenberg, J-horror and Rosemary’s Baby.
Set in the German Alps, the story sees American 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) join her father (Marton Csokas), stepmum Beth (Jessica Henwick) and mute young stepsister Alma (Mila Lieu) at a resort owned by Herr König (Dan Stevens), her dad’s new boss. Things get weirder from here on in, although ask Singer what his inspirations were and he taps into the emotions of the piece. ‘It was a mix of fear, or some sort of anxiety and sadness. And then just things in the world that interest me.’
Among those was a BBC nature documentary presented by Sir David Attenborough he saw on the cuckoo. ‘You know what they do, right? They drop their eggs, they kick one of the eggs out, and then the cuckoo bird hatches, but faster than the other chicks, and it pushes everything that touches its back out of the nest. And that’s pretty sinister. But it’s a natural process.’ Soon, he was fascinated by this idea of ‘brood parasitism’.
Somehow all of this lit a flame inside Singer, as he began to construct a bizarre tale involving impregnation – one that sees ex-Downton Abbey star Stevens go into full-on creepy mode as König. While the act
