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Warning : This clause contains major spoilers forCuckoo(2024 ) .
Cuckoois something that has n’t really been made before . It ’s a eddy on both a frantic scientist horror movie and a standard Final Girl thriller , one that pits Gretchen ( Euphoriastar Hunter Schafer ) , an angsty adolescent girl aggrieve the death of her female parent , against a remorseless , ego - proclaimed “ preservationist ” named Herr König ( Abigailstar Dan Stevens ) .
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For most ofCuckoo‘s runtime , König does his best to hide his nefarious intentions from Gretchen , her father , Luis ( Marton Csokas ) , stepmother , Beth ( Jessica Henwick ) , and half - baby , Alma ( Mila Lieu ) , but he eventually lets the cat ( or humanoid bird Lady ) out of the pocketbook after he tricks Gretchen and traps her in his home .
The worst vacation ever
While locked in König ’s pond house , Gretchen finds herself incapacitated once again by the same shrill , shrieking strait that preceded , among other things , a car crash that about killed both her and Ed ( Àstrid Bergès - Frisbey ) , a seductive tourist she bump off it off with earlier in the film . As Gretchen struggles to break complimentary of the time cringle stimulate by the strait , König explains that it is a shake produced by a rare , nearly extinct humanoid specie that most closely resembles in its traits and behaviour the cuckoo bird . The hooded womanhood who has been stalk Gretchen and the other distaff inhabitant of König ’s mountain hangout is one member of this species , as is the teenage young woman who was show operate away from her kinfolk ’s guest house inCuckoo‘s open scene .
That same little girl is entice into the same room as the incapacitated Gretchen by a melody that König plays on his recording machine . Just before the girl gets too close to Gretchen , König payoff , show off his ability over them both , and begins to stifle Gretchen with a pillow . He ’s disrupt when Henry ( Jan Bluthardt ) , a vindictive former cop whose married woman died as a result of König ’s experiments , storm into the puddle house , fritter König , and then executes the panic-struck adolescent girlfriend that had been lured there just moment originally . Together , Gretchen and Henry race to König ’s nearby hospital for save Alma from whatever experiment he and his straits physician , Dr. Bonomo ( Proschat Madani ) , are prepare for her .
Check in to this hospital and you may not check out
When they arrive at the hospital , Alma has already been tap out by a sedative and placed on an operating table , while Luis has been forced to take an increasingly grim Beth back to their resort base . As Gretchen and Henry look into Alma ’s room , though , they realize that she is n’t being operated on . Instead , she ’s been place in an observation sleeping accommodation that will tolerate her real female parent , the hooded snort woman that has terrorized Gretchen throughout the entirety ofCuckoo , to retrieve her . It ’s divulge in this same panorama that , like some jackass raspberry , the hooded woman ’s species relies on brood parasitism to keep itself going . This mean that during Beth and Luis ’ honeymoon tripper to König ’s recourse long time earlier , the former was secretly incapacitated and impregnated with one of the hooded woman ’s eggs . Alma is , therefore , another appendage of the cleaning lady ’s mechanical man , birdlike race .
When Henry realizes this , he want to drink down Alma , but Gretchen wants to protect her . A battle between the two ensues that stop with Gretchen stab him in the side with her butterfly tongue and trying to take Alma by from him , her mother , and a still - live , auto gas pedal - wielding König . When Alma misinterprets one of Gretchen ’s protective action as a potential plan of attack on her , though , she pushes her out and gives her angry , insensate female parent the hazard to finally kill Gretchen . What comply is a tense standoff in the infirmary ’s records room that ultimately terminate with Gretchen overreach her chaser by muffling her overwhelming screeches with a twosome of phone and kill her by stabbing her in the neck with her tongue .
Gretchen subsequently happen herself overtake in a standoff between König and Henry , which she tactfully evades just long enough to reach Alma , whom she convince to desire her again only after finally open up to her about her mother ’s death . Gretchen then hear to protect Alma from any gunfire from either König or Henry . As she walk between the two men , the former tries to persuade Alma to come with him so that he can continue to ensure the future existence of her mintage , while the latter demands that Gretchen move aside so that he can kill her babe . Alma , however , prevents either she or Gretchen from getting hurt by putting her hands over Gretchen ’s ears and letting out one of the same , debilitating screeches that her biologic mother often used before one of her approach .
How does Cuckoo end?
Alma ’s agile thinking works . Her shake trap König and Henry in a loop just long enough for her and Gretchen to get forth , and the co-occurrent gunshot that ring out shortly afterward suggest that the two men killed each other offscreen . As Gretchen then leads Alma into the safety and sunlight of a fresh solar day , she crosses paths in the hospital ’s parking lot with a still - wounded Ed , who check to give the two young lady a drive .
Cuckoothen terminate with Gretchen cradle a sleeping Alma ’s head in her lap — having in conclusion accepted the big sister role that she resist for so long . Of naturally , the knowledge that Alma may grow up to become a potentially dangerous , cold-blooded predator adds a fantastical seam toCuckoo‘s finish — one that perfectly fits a film as singular and unconventional as it . The thriller is a lot of things : a tense computerized tomography - and - mouse biz , paranoid enigma , black drollery , and even — in sure instances — a grim body - horror experience .
It ’s a will to author - director Tilman Singer ’s tonic control and Schafer ’s charismatic lead performance , though , that it ultimately feels as much like an oddball add up - of - age chronicle as it does anything else .
Cuckoois now playing in theaters .
