Jessica Kiang Expanding on the scope of his impressive but constrained 2018 debut (the demonic-possession-meets-therapeutic-improv-exercise “Luz”) while retaining that film’s bird-flipping attitude toward unnecessary niceties like coherent plotting or narrative logic, German director Tilman Singer makes what ought to be his breakthrough with “Cuckoo” an energetically outlandish fusion of stylish atmospherics, old-school reproductive horror and pro-flickknife advertorial. The profile of this highly enjoyable, unashamedly convoluted creepfest will be further raised by “Euphoria” star Hunter Schafer‘s terrific Final Girl performance and by Dan Stevens‘ hilariously eccentric villain, the second recent showcase for Stevens’ excellent spoken German after Maria Schrader’s “I’m Your Man.” Few are the films and fewer are the actors that can get such sinister mileage out of a character’s insistently Teutonic, semi-sibilant mispronunciation of the name “Gretchen.” Gretchen, aka “Ggrraaytshayn” (Schafer) appears, initially, to be the cuckoo.
