Spoiler alert: This article Contains minor spoilers for “Cuckoo”, now. Playing in theaters.
About 40% of cuckoo species are “brood parasites”.
Rather than building its own nest, the cuckoo sneaks into other birds' roosts and hides its eggs among the host's eggs. Because of the cuckoo's rapid growth cycle, the chick hatches faster than the rest of the flock, and once it emerges from its egg, it instinctively drives the host's young off the roost. The fledgling then uses its constant calling to coerce the host species into feeding it until it matures, often growing much larger than its false guard.
It was this horrific evolutionary trait that inspired Tilman Singer to write and direct the new mystery horror film “Cuckoo.” The film follows 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), who, after reluctantly moving to a remote resort with her father (Marton Csokas), becomes prey to a mysterious, human-like bird.
With “Cuckoo” now showing nationwide, Singer sat down with diverse To discuss subconscious cinematic influences, his love of wide-angle lenses, and why mystery and horror make a perfect genre pairing.
You said you were familiar. You were interested in the parasitic nature of the cuckoo through your German heritage, and later watched a documentary that reacquainted you with the bird. What made you confident that the themes surrounding the cuckoo's egg-laying habits would make for an effective horror film?
I don't know if I'm sure yet. It was still fresh. Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of different species of birds and then let them raise their young. And what ends up happening is that the host parents, usually smaller birds, feed this giant cuckoo chick after their own chicks have already died because their eggs are thrown out of the nest. But they keep feeding this chick, they don't leave the nest. And there was something beautiful about the horror, you know, something sad and beautiful at the same time. And I couldn't let it go. So [thinking] I thought about it subconsciously for a while, and at some point, I realized that it was about a family story that was going to happen. If I could follow that and think about that concept, there were things I could extract from it for the story. And the confidence came a little bit later.
“Cuckoo” comes from a place of teenage angst, with teenage angst being a prominent theme throughout the film. Is this from personal experience? Have you ever been trapped in a beautiful place you didn't want to be in as a teenager?
In an abstract, existential way. I had a really great childhood and youth and nothing terrible like that happened to me, you know? But everyone has to find their place in the world, and they have existential anxiety, and they feel pressures, and they feel fears, and they feel anxious. I think I'm more prone to that personally. I'm more nervous than most people and I tend to be anxious at times and I feel existential fear. And I think a lot of that comes through in the story.
How did you design the look of the masked woman?
I wanted to have a form of feminine beauty, a standard of feminine beauty from a bygone era, right? That was important. [“Dressed to Kill”] I had another idea. There was another movie called “Charade” where Audrey Hepburn was wearing big sunglasses, a coat and a scarf. That was the inspiration for [the look]Then we tried a wig on her. We had a long wig from the '70s, and it didn't really suit her. At one point, they put a Marilyn Monroe wig on her and it worked. That's it. That's the look.
It's common in horror movies to hide the monster until the end, but you don't do that in “Cuckoo.” Right off the bat, we get a good look at the shape of the woman in the hood. What is the thinking behind this decision?
I think her presence was more important than the mystery. Like having the ghostly woman character with our main character, who recently lost her mother, and now she's haunted by this thing, right? I felt like being close to the ghostly woman character was more important than hiding her. It was clear that in the middle of the movie, we had to get a good look at her.
How did you come up with the time loop effect as a symptom of “bird call”?“
I wanted to put people in a trap, and it had to be psychological in some way. And I thought, “Oh, they're being hypnotized in some way. What could that be?” You know, when you think about cycles, there are a lot of them in the movie in different forms. Family, nature, things like that. Just thinking about that, the visuals of the cycle were very close. And on top of that, I always wanted to have a movie where I could show the same shot, or almost the same shot, or two takes of the same shot. [in the same scene]And I didn't know how to do that. But when you edit movies, sometimes it happens, where you have a different shot twice in the timeline or something like that. It's kind of cool, isn't it?
The forest is a uniquely haunting place, and the lenses you use make the locations look soft and dreamy. Can you describe how you approached the cinematography for “Cuckoo”?
I think the lenses are a good point. I really like wide lenses. If you're talking about CinemaScope lenses, widescreen lenses, aperture lenses, I really like when they're wide. Nowadays, it's very common to use telephoto lenses, which always give me a sense of separation and a little bit of distance. But what was very common in the '80s and '90s were wide-angle lenses that if you saw them on the big screen, you really felt like you were there because it was like the screen was wrapping around you. That's what we were going for. And in a lot of these shots we were always using a slightly wider lens. I think that gives you a more immersive experience.
Your first two feature films, “Almond” and “The Cuckoo,” were both horror films. Puzzles. What about Merge those types Does he inspire you as a director?
I don't know. They go together really well. It's like vanilla ice cream and chocolate. They just taste really good. Horror is always about death in some way. It's always about the end of life, and our existence is finite and things are going to end. And the mystery is… I forget who made this joke, but one of the comedians, maybe Demetri Martin, made a joke that the mystery is never about finding out something good. It's always about, Who's the killer? It's never about, Who made the cookies? Those things, they just fit together, don't they? It's always about, Okay, where's the danger? What do I need to know?
You've mentioned before that you watched “Lost Highway” and “Repo Man” at a young age, and they were clear influences on this film. What other films have you watched? What influences did you draw from “Cuckoo?”
I don't have a lot of tangible things. It's like a big mess of movie appreciation. But of course, you know, professors love [David Lynch] or [Brian] De Palma. But I personally also [Federico] Fellini and [Michelangelo] Antonioni here, in terms of how to handle the camera and maintain the mystery. A lot of times, I don't really know what the references are when I'm doing them. It's like I forget them and they come out in an unconscious way. And then a lot of times, I remember when I'm talking to the audience after a show or in an interview, and they say, “Doesn't this indicate that?” And I say, “Oh, yeah, maybe it does. I think it does.” You just have to learn to accept the fact that, yeah, of course, I got something from somewhere mixed in with something else.
This is only your second feature film, and you were able to collaborate with Neon and Hunter Schafer to make it. What do you think the film is about? What were you trying to achieve with “Cuckoo”?
I wanted to talk, in this fever dream-like state, about acceptance. It’s a film about accepting where you are. The film talks a lot, in different ways, about family structure, generational conflict, violence that people inflict on each other, and how violence spirals back into itself and then feeds into another cycle of violence. And that’s so horrible, but we all have to find a way to deal with it. That doesn’t mean accepting it and thinking, “Oh, that’s great,” but we’re always, in part, people who transmit violence and receive it. And I wanted to talk about that and have a really loving story about what the characters do, how they protect each other and how they deal with it, while also accepting that the horrible things are part of them.
