Hunter Schafer's Movie Cuckoo
Update: 2024-08-122
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In the new, stylishly odd horror film Cuckoo, Hunter Schafer plays an American teenager who reluctantly moves with her family to a mysterious resort in the German Alps. Her rebellious spirit clashes with the resort's creepy proprietor, played by Dan Stevens. When weird stuff starts happening, long-buried family secrets come to light and the resort's true nature stands revealed.
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In the new stylishly odd horror film Kuku, Hunter Schaefer plays an American teenager who reluctantly moves with her family to a mysterious resort in the German Alps.
00:00:37
Her rebellious spirit clashes with the resort's handsome but creepy proprietor, played by Dan Stevens.
00:00:43
When weird stuff starts happening, long buried family secrets come to light and the resort's true nature stands revealed.
00:00:50
I'm Glenn Weldon and today we're talking about Kuku on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
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00:02:17
Joining me today and making her pop culture happy hour day view is B.A.
00:02:23
Parker.
00:02:24
You know her, she's one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast.
00:02:27
Welcome to the show Parker.
00:02:29
Oh, thank you.
00:02:30
Also with this is Jordan Krooshiela.
00:02:32
You know her, she's a writer and producer and the host of the podcast feeling seen on maximum fun.
00:02:36
Welcome back Jordan.
00:02:37
Thank you so much for having me always happy to be pop culture about horror.
00:02:42
That's a thing.
00:02:43
Let's do it.
00:02:44
Cuckoo stars Euphoria's Hunter Shaper as Gretchen, a teenage girl mourning the death of her mother.
00:02:49
She's forced to join her father stepmother and young half sister as they move to work at the spa resort where her father and stepmother spent their honeymoon.
00:02:57
The place is run by her Kunish played by Dan Stevens.
00:03:00
He seems kindly enough and even gets Gretchen a job at the resort, but he's also deeply sus as the kids say and warns her not to go outside after dark.
00:03:08
Soon Gretchen starts to notice strange things.
00:03:11
The guests of the resort acting oddly, her half sister having mysterious fits.
00:03:15
So she starts disobeying her parents and her Kunish, which puts her and her family in great danger from the dark secrets that the resort is hiding.
00:03:22
Cuckoo is in theaters now.
00:03:23
Jordan, I want to start with you.
00:03:25
This movie is called Cuckoo.
00:03:27
It could also be called Cuckoo Banana Pads.
00:03:29
What do you make of it?
00:03:30
I had a really good time with this movie.
00:03:33
I really love how it continues this season of mythical figure terror coming from neon on the heels of long legs and Nicholas Cage's portrayal of malevolence in that.
00:03:45
Overall, strong movie.
00:03:47
I would say I loved component parts of it more than I loved the overall movie, but that said, still really enjoyed it.
00:03:55
Would highly recommend, but there are some pieces in this that are some of my favorites of the year, including Hunter Schafer's performance, the continued dirtbag star, 2024 year that Dan Stevens is having,
00:04:08
and the Alps are a tremendous co-star in this film, and I love the creature.
00:04:13
I'm a big fan of the creature.
00:04:15
So yeah, overall, strong positive.
00:04:17
Strong positive.
00:04:17
How about you, Parker?
00:04:18
I would say similarly, except I mean, I loved everything.
00:04:22
Performances, sound design, direction.
00:04:26
I loved everything, but the script.
00:04:29
Okay.
00:04:29
I felt like I was just constantly trying to figure out the rules of this world, just like the rules that the director had created.
00:04:36
Teelman Singer.
00:04:37
Teelman Singer.
00:04:38
Teelman Singer.
00:04:39
Director of Luz.
00:04:40
Yeah, because I'd seen Luz, so I kind of knew what I was getting into, and I was like, oh, okay, we're in some of the other depths.
00:04:49
We are painting with an Impressionist brush.
00:04:52
Yeah.
00:04:52
Enjoy the Impressionism.
00:04:55
I just wish he kind of fully understood what the Impressionism was.
00:04:59
Well, he's talked a lot about how he goes with the subconscious, and I believed it after watching this film, because there were certain things that didn't necessarily connect.
00:05:07
I didn't think this film was a hoot, though.
00:05:09
This is playing in a sandbox that I love, horror movies to play in, which a little bit spooky, a little bit silly.
00:05:16
And, you know, one kind of tied up with the other, and I'm fine with that.
00:05:20
It also belongs to the genre of film called Dan Stevens being a weirdo.
00:05:24
Absolutely.
00:05:24
Thank God.
00:05:25
Thank God.
00:05:26
He's having such a great time in this, and he's not pushing it.
00:05:29
He's not mugging.
00:05:29
That's what he does.
00:05:30
Like, I remember when this dude left out in the abbey, people were like, why would you leave such a successful show?
00:05:35
It's so he can do exactly this.
00:05:37
Be this freaky goofball.
00:05:39
He saw the vision in this and in Legion and in the guest, and in your vision.
00:05:43
So he's in the most recent Godzilla Kong movie.
00:05:46
I mean, he's a dirtbag, Kaiju dentist, who swagger his way across the screen.
00:05:53
I mean, he's a dirtbag in Abigail.
00:05:54
He's all right.
00:05:55
I forgot about Abigail.
00:05:56
Yes.
00:05:56
I want to say he has ruined my current 2024 letterbox stats.
00:06:01
I looked yesterday.
00:06:03
I've seen seven films this year with him in them.
00:06:07
This is a problem.
00:06:09
This is not intentional.
00:06:10
Parker, no, no jury in the world.
00:06:12
We convict you of that.
00:06:13
I mean, like, of course, he's doing this.
00:06:15
He doesn't want to stand around muttering about putting spoons, and I get that.
00:06:17
It's a big info dump in this movie that is laden with big, heavy clots of lore, as you mentioned, Parker.
00:06:23
Yeah.
00:06:24
And one of the reasons it might not land is because he tosses it off so like he's telling you where they got that wallpaper and that sconces, maybe from Home Goods.
00:06:31
It's like, he just, it's airy.
00:06:32
It's dismissive.
00:06:34
Giving you the chance to be of great use in our quest for preservation.
00:06:38
Dan Stevens with the German accent is transcendent to me.
00:06:42
Yeah.
00:06:43
So also see I'm your man in addition to absolutely.
00:06:46
I mean, two different vibes, but you get a German Dan Stevens.
00:06:49
I just to mention a different vibe.
00:06:51
I did a post show Q&A with Tillman Singer for this, and he shared with the room that this was originally a role meant for John Malkovich, but schedule did not look out.
00:07:00
So then he got on the phone with Dan Stevens and Dan was really, really trying to talk his way into this role.
00:07:06
Like pitching the case for like, why this doesn't really need to be like a 60 something year old man.
00:07:10
And the fact that like he was like, I'm going to make my case to you for why I am this scary German hotelier slash biogenetic engineer guy.
00:07:21
Sure.
00:07:22
Yeah.
00:07:23
As you do.
00:07:23
I can imagine a Malkovich turn on this role, being a little bit more scenery chewing.
00:07:27
And what I love about this is that Dan Stevens is kind of there.
00:07:30
But to go back to your point, Parker, let's talk about the structure of this movie.
00:07:35
I do think this movie peaks early.
00:07:38
Yeah.
00:07:39
And when we get the reveal, we switch from horror to thriller.
00:07:42
And I'm not entirely convinced that action set pieces that make up the back half of the film.
00:07:48
I'm not sure that they're this directors metier, right?
00:07:51
I mean, the most important job during an action scene is to keep our attention, right?
00:07:55
And to keep our mind from wandering and second guessing what we're seeing.
00:07:58
And I was second guessing, third guessing, fourth guessing, fifth guessing, everything I saw.
00:08:03
Do you agree that there is a tonal handoff in this movie?
00:08:06
And did it work for you?
00:08:08
I wouldn't say it was like a tonal handoff.
00:08:11
I think there's like this motif where like when you see the world is shifting and there's like the repeat over and over again, the scene.
00:08:19
Sure.
00:08:20
And I was counting how many times that happened and like what that meant in the scene.
00:08:25
And I was like, oh, this is fine.
00:08:27
I don't think this goes with the rules of what, like I think the director thought this was like a fun thing to do.
00:08:34
And not necessarily something that really contributed to the language of the film.
00:08:41
It tries to stick within the horror genre, but also it tries to have its cake and eat it too in a way that I don't think it doesn't benefit from that in the long run.
00:08:53
Yeah.
00:08:53
Because like I'm frankly always going to be happy with the kind of movies I like if a big gun shows up and then there becomes like a hail of bullets.
00:09:03
I was really interested in sort of the shift in this movie was between those and this to see something that had a tail that went toward a sentimentality and a heart in it.
00:09:16
We're kind of putting like a feel good through line into this story and where it kept me was hunter-shaper is so good in this that I was like,
00:09:28
listen, I'm so invested in her.
00:09:30
I am rooting for an outcome that satisfies me in terms of her character.
00:09:36
So if I believe in the lead, I will kind of just be like, great, I'm by them with the rest of it.
00:09:41
Oh yeah, for sure.
00:09:42
Like she was great.
00:09:43
My one thing was because I didn't read the log line before I saw it.
00:09:47
I didn't realize she was a teenager.
00:09:50
Oh, interesting.
00:09:51
So I was 40 minutes in and I was like, why is this woman in her 20s with her family?
00:09:56
Like she can leave.
00:09:58
And then her dad was like, you're almost 18.
00:10:00
I was like, oh, now her decisions make sense.
00:10:02
Like she's making dumb decisions because she's 17.
00:10:05
Well, this is the needle that I think that performance threads because she is not trying to win us over, right?
00:10:11
She's playing this character.
00:10:12
I kind of hated the character because she is an annoying sullen teen.
00:10:15
But I also wanted to survive because the movie gives us that instant sympathy cheat code.
00:10:22
She gets injured pretty early on in this film.
00:10:24
So they're doing the John McLean, right?
00:10:26
You are automatically like invested in her and you want things to turn out for her.
00:10:32
But I was just so much more invested in the horror elements than the action elements.
00:10:36
I mean, there is a scene in this movie which I think could do for biking at night, but psycho did for showering.
00:10:44
It was so good.
00:10:46
Like that is one of the horror movie moments.
00:10:47
That's one of the movie moments of the year.
00:10:49
It's in the trailer.
00:10:50
Now that was earned.
00:10:51
Yeah.
00:10:52
And it's in the trailer and you see like most of the meat of the sequence in the trailer and it doesn't even matter when you are watching it happen surrounded by this movie.
00:11:01
It did not break the tension.
00:11:02
It wasn't like, oh, yeah, I remember seeing this.
00:11:05
You are white knuckling through that scene.
00:11:08
Yeah.
00:11:08
Because it shows us the viewer more than it's showing the person that it's happening to.
00:11:13
So we know how much danger that person is in.
00:11:15
And even though we can't quite understand what's going on, the real scare isn't a jump scare.
00:11:20
It's just built methodically through the interplay of streetlights and shadows, streetlights and shadows, streetlights and shadow.
00:11:25
It's so good.
00:11:26
And I wanted this film that more of that.
00:11:28
Unless of the bang bang bang, shoot them up, chase, chase, chase, kind of thing.
00:11:32
But talk to me a little bit about the setting.
00:11:34
You mentioned the Alps.
00:11:36
Jordan, this resort, it is giving overlooked vibes in a big way.
00:11:40
And I love how it's modern in design, but it's lived in.
00:11:44
It's shabby modern or contemporary, whatever it is.
00:11:47
And it's got all this wood paneling, but there's nothing that's cozy.
00:11:49
It's all very cold and industrial.
00:11:51
Talk to me about it.
00:11:53
I really like the strange contrast, cacophony of sort of like we have the scene from like there's a scene from what it like the stills, like the girls sitting on a bed like blow drying her hair in mid-screen,
00:12:05
in what couldn't be more of like an air B and B cozy like woods and warm tones.
00:12:10
And then you have the home that the family actually lives in that's really sterile and really modern.
00:12:15
And then you have the resort itself, which is an old feeling, like kind of like chalet, like you said, the wood paneling.
00:12:22
And I liked the fairy over the top kind of cues that this movie gives us where like another thing in the Q&A that that Tilliman said was that he wasn't trying to hide the way you're supposed to feel about Dan Stevens.
00:12:35
You know as soon as you meet Dan Stevens, not to trust him.
00:12:38
I just needed to decide when I'm going to reveal to you what his whole deal is, but this isn't a question of like who's the bad guy.
00:12:46
And then you get into that house and you're like, hmm, I wonder if Gretchen can feel safe in this place, the way that it kind of tips you off with the way environments feel not real or too real.
00:12:58
They feel like almost like kind of cartoons of what a Bavarian and Tilliman has talked about that as well, wanting to play with like the stereotypes of what people think Germany is, that it's all like Bavarian gingerbread houses and like Alpine settings kind of thing.
00:13:13
And then you get in there and it's like, well, this is a Grimm's fairy tale, a dark German fairy tale.
00:13:19
And you shouldn't have expected a fairy godmother to kind of come swooping in.
00:13:22
So I like how the movie just almost like I said, like ham-fistedly lets you know that something is wrong everywhere that Gretchen turns.
00:13:30
And it's not like, I wonder if she should have a right to feel scared right now.
00:13:34
It's like, no, everything from go is a warning sign.
00:13:37
I think that's the fun of genre is getting to play with over the top like that.
00:13:41
Parkie mentioned the sound design.
00:13:42
I also made a note in my notes about the sound design, but I'll be honest, I saw this three weeks ago.
00:13:46
I don't, that's all I have in my notes is sound design underline, underline exclamation point.
00:13:50
So talk to me a little bit, drop, drop, drop, drop out a little bit if you would.
00:13:54
No, like it's just, it's so atmospheric.
00:13:58
I also was like trying to discreetly turn on my shazam during the film because I think hunter shafers like an emo girly in the band.
00:14:07
So she's like playing the bass.
00:14:09
I'm like, oh this song is great.
00:14:12
But it is like this atmospheric of like you feel like it's like this simmering fear that's like bubbling up throughout.
00:14:21
So when you have a scene that's like going into the woods and that foreboding nature of it and Tillman like really plays with that and like the creature makes a sound that I think will you know last like the grudge of just like this like haunting sound that's you're going to leave like a voice memo to your friends and make to them.
00:14:43
That is mean.
00:14:44
That is very mean.
00:14:45
But it also like really reminded me of just like 80 slashes in America of just like there's like the nightman on street trope of like a teenager just begging the adults for help.
00:14:57
And they're like yeah you're over you're overthinking it.
00:15:00
It's going to be okay.
00:15:01
You're just watching a teenager get gassed for an hour and a half.
00:15:05
I mean like I'm scared.
00:15:06
I need help.
00:15:07
I'm like no you're you're overthinking it.
00:15:09
Don't worry everything's okay.
00:15:11
And it's become so aggravating but also like you get it because the teenager is making also like rash decisions.
00:15:19
I loved and hated and that really stuck with me.
00:15:23
Yeah.
00:15:24
She's making stupid decisions but she's not wrong.
00:15:26
Right?
00:15:27
At one point Dan Steven says something and she points out to her parents that's a really effed up way to say that.
00:15:32
Yeah.
00:15:33
She's got a big laugh in my theater.
00:15:34
I got the biggest laugh.
00:15:35
I think this movie defies the sort of conventional wisdom in terms of its creature.
00:15:40
We're like hide it and then reveal like keep it hidden.
00:15:43
Let the mind fill in what you don't see.
00:15:46
And this movie gives you its creature figure pretty early and a pretty clear look at it.
00:15:52
And then you just get kind of more and more of it over time.
00:15:55
And because it's human enough I loved the choice.
00:15:58
I loved seeing the creature.
00:15:59
It made me anticipate it coming back.
00:16:02
It made me want to see more.
00:16:03
I really like how in the edit they chose how much to give you and at what times of the I hate saying monster because I feel for her.
00:16:12
Yeah.
00:16:13
But what you see of it of the being I think this was well chosen application of like give them the goods up front and then let that terrorize them for the rest of the movie.
00:16:25
Is there anything else you want to hit that we haven't hit yet?
00:16:28
I will say that Hunter Schaefer she was cast in this before Tillman singer had not seen euphoria yet when he got her audition tape and was like wow I think this girl's the one and then he started watching her work.
00:16:41
It's funny to think of like in 2024 thinking of a filmmaker taking a chance on Hunter Schaefer to lead their film because she's such an ascendant star and she's the business like this is a lead this is a star and it was very fun to watch her carry a movie and I'm very excited for her carrying more.
00:17:00
I love her like I think she's also doing another horror film and just her becoming like a scream queen is bringing me joy.
00:17:09
Yeah she's sharing the screen with Dan Stevens and if you can get my attention when Dan Stevens is on screen being a goofball you're a star.
00:17:17
Yes.
00:17:18
We want to know what you think about Kuku find us at facebook.com/pcaj and that brings us to the end of our show.
00:17:25
Jordan Krushiela B.A.
00:17:26
Parker thank you so much for being here.
00:17:28
Thank you.
00:17:29
Thank you so much for having us.
00:17:30
This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and edited by Mike Katz of our Supervisor Producer is Jessica Ritty and Hello come in provides our theme music.
00:17:38
Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
00:17:40
I'm Glenn Weldon and we'll see you all tomorrow.
00:17:42
On this week's episode of Wild Card author Tati Brodesser Ackner talks about the strange places we can find peace.
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