Director: Tilman Singer
A remote resort tucked into the German Alps becomes the setting for Cuckoo, Tilman Singer's 2024 horror-thriller starring Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens. Running 89 minutes, the film builds its dread out of unsettling sound design and a landscape that never quite feels safe.
What is Cuckoo about?
Seventeen-year-old Gretchen relocates to the mountains with her father, stepmother, and young half-sister after her father takes a job managing renovations at an isolated resort. The property's owner, played by Dan Stevens, is unnervingly welcoming, and Gretchen quickly notices that something about the guests, the staff, and the resort's history doesn't add up. Strange noises outside her window at night, guests who seem to vanish, and a recurring, piercing shriek push her to start investigating on her own, even as the adults around her dismiss what she's seeing. The deeper she digs, the more the resort's polished surface starts to crack, and the danger stops being something she can ignore.
Cast & crew
Hunter Schafer leads the film as Gretchen, working opposite Dan Stevens as the resort's owner. Jessica Henwick, Marton Csokas, Greta Fernández, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, and Proschat Madani round out a cast spread across guests, staff, and local investigators, while young Mila Lieu plays Gretchen's half-sister, whose safety becomes one of the story's central worries.
Context & significance
Cuckoo is a Germany-United States co-production, and director Tilman Singer shot much of it on location in the Bavarian Alps, using the region's real architecture and terrain rather than leaning on built sets. That choice grounds the film's more disorienting sequences in a place that looks and feels authentic, and it's part of why the atmosphere stood out to viewers even when reactions to the wider plot were mixed.
Where & how to watch
Cuckoo is available on K-Time with Persian subtitles; this release does not carry a Persian dub, so the dialogue plays in its original language track. Anyone can read this page without an account, but watching the film requires logging into K-Time, a platform built with Persian-speaking audiences and a Farsi interface in mind.