Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Théâtre Hall)
PRESENTED WITH
Dream Creep
Official selection
Berlinale 2024
Overlook Film Festival 2024
Sydney Film Festival 2024
Raindance 2024
Calgary Underground Film Festival 2024
Honors
Silver Raven Award - Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film
Director
Tilman Singer
Producer
Thor Bradwell, Markus Halberschmidt, Ken Kao, Josh Rosenbaum, Maria Tsigka
Writer
Tilman Singer
Cast
Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens
contact
Entract Films
“Deliriously entertaining… An energetically outlandish fusion of stylish atmospherics and old-school reproductive horror”– Jessica Kiang, VARIETY
“Incredibly strange and deviously fun”– Siddhant Adlakha, MASHABLE
“So refreshingly unconventional and unpredictable in every way… Examining heady themes of grief, reproduction, and gendered expectations through inventive, playful horror”– Meagan Navarro, BLOODY DISGUSTING
The last thing teenager Gretchen (Hunter Schafer, EUPHORIA) wants is to be taken from her divorced mother’s home in the States and dragged halfway around the world by her father and his new wife. Yet she winds up with Luis (Marton Csokas, THE EQUALIZER), Beth (Jessica Henwick, THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS) and Beth’s mute preteen daughter Alma (Mila Lieu, DODGER) in the Bavarian Alps, where her dad and stepmom are redesigning a local resort. They’re working for Herr König (Dan Stevens, ABIGAIL), an odd bird who initially comes across as friendly, and gives Gretchen a desk job at his hotel. From her first night on the job, however, unsettling things begin to happen to and around her, particularly random attacks by a freakish, screaming woman—yet Gretchen has no idea just how bizarre and dangerous things are going to get.
Anyone who attended Fantasia 2018 will remember what a singular sensation Tilman Singer’s LUZ was, and now he’s back with a follow-up feature that’s even more, well, cuckoo than his first. He may be working with a higher budget and more experienced cast here, but his engrossing, sometimes hallucinatory style remains the same, achieved in concert with returning collaborators such as cinematographer Paul Faltz, production designer Dario Mendez Acosta and composer Simon Waskow. As Gretchen navigates past and present trauma, attempting to leave and then just survive, Schafer’s fully committed performance always engages our sympathy and interest, while Stevens steals the movie in an instant-classic eccentric/menacing turn, sporting a delicious accent. While the movie’s string of twisted developments—which encompass domestic tension, body horror, and perverted science—all make a certain amount of sense if you think enough about them afterward, you can enjoy CUCKOO just as much if you simply let all the weirdness wash over you. At one point, a detective queries Gretchen about a strange event of the previous night, and it’s entirely appropriate when her response is, “Which one?” – Michael Gingold
Showings
Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Théâtre Hall)
PRESENTED WITH
Dream Creep
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