Parents' Guide to Cuckoo

This wild horror movie both overexplains its plot and leaves it undercooked, never quite sure where it's headed. But Cuckoo's eerie atmosphere and committed characters make it worth a viewing. Directed by German-born Tilman Singer, whose debut feature was the experimental Luz, Cuckoo is certainly more geared for mainstream horror audiences than that movie was, although it also has its own touches of the bizarre. The story's secret experiment is meant to recall Nazi atrocities, and Dan Stevens gives a note-perfect performance as the polite but sinister German villain, even if his plan doesn't quite seem totally worked out. And it's never totally clear who's on what side or for what reason.

But Hunter Schafer, a trans actor best known for her work on Euphoria, is a serious "tough girl" character, taking more physical damage than any movie hero since perhaps John McClane in the Die Hard movies. Gretchen is wounded and aching, but she bristles like a porcupine at any sign of danger. (She carries a butterfly knife that she whips into readiness with expert precision.) Singer also makes clever use of space and sound, shadow and light, angles and corners, to emphasize the creepy factor, and things feel gleefully unsettling for a long time—at least until the plot kicks in. Cuckoo may not reach master-class levels of horror, but it clocks in and shows up.