Movies
‘Cuckoo’ Trailer Teases Bonkers Aural Nightmare for Hunter Schafer
Up next from writer/director Tilman Singer (Luz) is NEON’s strange horror movie Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer (“Euphoria”). NEON unveiled a new trailer this morning that teases just how Cuckoo Singer’s latest may get.
Look for Cuckoo to now arrive in theaters nationwide on August 9, 2024.
Watch the new trailer below to get a feel for the strange horror ahead.
In Cuckoo: “Reluctantly, 17-year-old Gretchen leaves her American home to live with her father, who has just moved into a resort in the German Alps with his new family. Arriving at their future residence, they are greeted by Mr. König, her father’s boss, who takes an inexplicable interest in Gretchen’s mute half-sister Alma. Something doesn’t seem right in this tranquil vacation paradise. Gretchen is plagued by strange noises and bloody visions until she discovers a shocking secret that also concerns her own family.”
Dan Stevens (The Guest), Jessica Henwick (Underwater), Marton Csókás (Freelance), Greta Fernández (Santo) and Jan Bluthardt (Luz) also star in Cuckoo.
I wrote in my review out of SXSW, “There’s inventive worldbuilding on display that sets this high-concept horror movie apart and a few intense horror cat-and-mouse scenes that deliver palpable tension. But Singer approaches it with a playful sense of humor that only further nudges Cuckoo into the realm of weird cinema. It’s so refreshingly unconventional and unpredictable in every way, right down to its raucous, entertainingly silly finale, that it’s hard to care about all of the plot that gets discarded along the way.”
NEON is having a busy year in horror. The Sydney Sweeney-starring Immaculate is in theaters now with the Nicolas Cage-starring Longlegs set to arrive in July.
Tom Quinn, Jeff Deutchman, Emily Thomas and Ryan Friscia executive produced Cuckoo for Neon, with producers including Markus Halberschmidt, Josh Rosenbaum, Maria Tsigka, and Ken Kao, Thor Bradwell and Ben Rimmer. Shot on 35mm in Germany, the upcoming film is a cooperation between Germany’s Fiction Park and the United States’ Waypoint Entertainment.
Hollywood is serious about landing the next Backrooms. Hot on the heels of a Siren Head feature announcement, Deadline reports that a new movie based on viral YouTube series The Mandela Catalogue is in development.
It also has some Hollywood heavy hitters behind it.
Amblin Entertainment’s Steven Spielberg, United Artists’ Scott Stuber (Frankenstein), and Amazon MGM Studios are set to produce, emerging victorious after a highly competitive 11-studio bidding war.
Launched in 2021, the YouTube series is set in the fictional Mandela County, Wisconsin which is “invaded by shape-shifting, nearly immortal creatures called Alternates. The Alternates are led by a false depiction of the Archangel Gabriel and their aim is to wipe out the human race by psychologically torturing them to the point of suicide. The Alternates are known for manipulating AV media, TVs, computers and GPS systems.”
The movie will be directed by the series’ creator, Alex Kister, based on a screenplay he adapted with Tyler Clifton.
The Mandela Catalogue has racked up an impressive 100 million views across its official episodes alone, solidifying it as one of the largest original analog horror franchises on YouTube.
Spielberg and Holly Bario are producing for Amblin Entertainment alongside Aaron B. Koontz for Paper Street Pictures and Stuber and Nick Nesbitt for United Artists. Kister and Clifton are also producing. Annie McCreery will oversee the project for United Artists. Maria Fortese will oversee for Amblin.
Get acquainted with The Mangela Catalogue below while we wait to learn more.