CUCKOO

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film starts in a house, where a man and woman are heard arguing and only seen by their shadows. A teenage girl (Matthea Lara Pedersen) appears and reacts to the sound of a sharp bird call, causing her body to twitch as everything around her rings and reverberates. The girl escapes into the woods. A man speaks on the phone, reporting to another man about the girl’s disappearance. The second man states that their next subjects will be easier to control.

Teenager Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) is moving in with her father Luis (Marton Csokas) and his new wife Beth (Jessica Henwick) at their home in the Bavarian Alps after the death of Gretchen’s mother. Gretchen has a mute half-sister, Alma (Mila Lieu), whom Gretchen refuses to acknowledge as anything other than “her father’s daughter”. The family is met by Dr. König (Dan Stevens), the host of the nearby hotel where Gretchen is offered a job to work. Gretchen also meets König’s head of staff, Dr. Bonomo (Proschat Madani).

Gretchen is told to spend some time with Alma. Gretchen plays music and jams out while Alma tries to mimic her air-guitar moves. The mysterious bird call is heard once again, sounding shrill and piercing. It causes Alma to suffer a seizure, and also makes Gretchen repeatedly experience the last few seconds over and over again until Alma scratches Gretchen’s face. The noise stops, and Luis and Beth come in to tend to Alma.

Gretchen starts working at the hotel with a woman named Beatrix/”Trixie” (Greta Fernandez), whose boyfriend, a cop named Erik (Konrad Singer), is also there to help. Gretchen notices an unnamed woman vomiting in the lobby before her husband takes care of her. Later, Gretchen meets a woman named Ed (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) comes in to ask for a room and to buy a six-pack of beer. The two later see the same woman from earlier, throwing up again before drinking something and then quietly walking away.

After work, Gretchen prepares to ride her bike back to the house, even though König had warned her it is unsafe at that time to go back alone and was even offering to pick her up. As she goes through the woods, she finds that a strange Hooded Woman (Kalin Morrow) is chasing after her. Gretchen runs into a station to try and get help but accidentally slams her head against the glass, giving herself a bad cut. The woman disappears, and when Gretchen files a report with Erik, it is dismissed as a prank.

The next day, Gretchen is approached by a man at the resort named Henry (Jan Bluthardt). He says he is a detective that is investigating a murder related to the same woman that Gretchen saw the night before.

Gretchen is met by Ed again, and the two go outside to make out while sharing a cigarette. They decide to run away together to Paris, but Gretchen ends up in a time loop again as the screeching bird call is heard once again. The Hooded Woman appears in the road, causing Ed to swerve and crash the car. The woman pulls Ed out and throws her away before trying to get to Gretchen.

Gretchen wakes up at the resort in medical care. After seeing her father and Beth, she is met by Henry again. He says that the woman is potentially involved in the death of his wife, as well as another woman in the area (the vomiting woman from earlier). The victims were found choked to death on their vomit by their husbands. After she is able to leave her room, Gretchen joins Henry as they stake out the same suite where the woman and her husband stayed, the Lovers Lounge.

Trixie and Erik are set to have a private romantic evening in the suite. While he is getting something for her, the bird call goes off again, and the time loop catches Erik. The Hooded Woman enters and terrifies Trixie before she falls unconscious. The woman attempts to implant some kind of goo inside of her. Gretchen and Henry enter the suite after the woman flees and turn Trixie on her side so she won’t choke to death.

When Gretchen sees Luis the next morning, she confronts him over what is going on at the resort and how König is involved in some shady business. König then produces a box delivered to the house. In it are all of Gretchen’s mother’s belongings. This forces Luis to admit that he sold their old house, which enrages Gretchen. König then stands by the window and plays from a flute, which causes the screeching bird call to cry out again. While Gretchen goes to tearfully listen to her mother’s answering machine, on which she had been leaving messages to hear her voice, Gretchen hears what sounds like a message from Alma using text-to-speech, who invites Gretchen’s mother to visit to make Gretchen happy.

Gretchen leaves her room and finds that her family is gone. König states that Alma suffered a seizure and was taken to the hospital. He says he will take Gretchen to the nearest train station, so she joins him. Instead, she is brought to König’s house, where she finds Erik holding Henry as some kind of hostage. König tells Gretchen that Henry was let go from his detective job recently after pursuing a case that he was involved with. König then sprays Gretchen in the face with pheromones and keeps her locked in a pool house.

Gretchen makes an attempt to break out, but the bird call cries out and puts her in the time loop again. She is then incapacitated by the same teenage girl from earlier. König then comes out to explain his whole experiment: the Hooded Woman is a part of a centuries-old inhuman species that impregnates other women with its offspring, allowing it to be raised by humans until it rejoins their kind, much like cuckoo birds. This is also the case with Alma, as she is a daughter of the Hooded Woman with Beth only used as a surrogate. The teenage Cuckoo tries to impregnate Gretchen, but Henry gets a gun and shoots König and the young woman before freeing Gretchen.

Gretchen and Henry head to the hospital, where Dr. Bonomo is leading the experiment to reunite Alma with the main Cuckoo mother (the Hooded Woman). Beth says she doesn’t feel good and is taken away with Luis. König, having survived the gunshot, shows up and kills Bonomo and her assistant. He prepares to finish the experiment himself while Henry holds Gretchen back from saving Alma, believing that she is a monster that should be killed. Gretchen stabs Henry with her butterfly knife to break free and save her sister.

Gretchen frees Alma, but she pushes Gretchen off and runs away. The Cuckoo mother shows up and goes after Gretchen as she chases Alma. The creature stalks Gretchen through the records room until Henry limps in and pushes the shelves over. The mother sees Gretchen but gets stabbed in the throat and bleeds out. Alma flees but nearly gets caught in a shootout between Henry and König. Gretchen manages to get through to Alma by bringing up the message she heard and says that her mother said “thank you”. The two finally come together as sisters.

Gretchen tries to guide Alma out, but König attempts to shoot at her. She runs as he is reloading, but Henry still intends to kill Alma. The girl lets out a shriek similar to the mother, which disorients the two men long enough for Gretchen and Alma to get out. König and Henry then shoot each other dead at the same time.

The girls leave the facility and find Ed standing outside since she has left the hospital. She drives Gretchen and Alma far away from the resort.

Teenaged Gretchen moves in with her father Luis, stepmother Beth, and half-sister Alma in the Bavarian Alps. She gets a job working at a hotel operated by Dr. König. After leaving work one night, Gretchen is chased by a mysterious Hooded Woman before she disappears.

Gretchen meets a man named Henry who says he is a detective working a case involving the mysterious deaths of two women, including his wife. One of the women was at the resort with her husband and was seen vomiting in the lobby. When Gretchen tries to flee the resort with a woman named Ed, the Hooded Woman's screeching bird call causes a time loop that ends with them in a car crash. Gretchen then works with Henry as the Hooded Woman stalks Gretchen's coworker Trixie, attacking and trying to implant some kind of slime inside of her.

After Gretchen's family takes Alma to the hospital for a seizure, König brings Gretchen to his house where the truth is revealed. First, Henry was fired from his detective job for investigating the case of his wife, and König's whole experiment involves keeping a species of creatures (unofficially called "Cuckoos") alive by impregnating women with their offspring and having the human mothers raise them until they may rejoin their kind. Alma is one of those offspring since Beth was a surrogate. Henry saves Gretchen from the younger, more recent Cuckoo mother.

Gretchen and Henry go to the hospital where Alma is, but Henry intends to kill Alma, believing her existence to be an abomination. He helps Gretchen kill the Hooded Woman (who was Alma's Cuckoo mother), and after Gretchen gets Alma to trust her, Alma uses her own Cuckoo call to disorient König and Henry long enough for her and Gretchen to leave. The two men shoot each other dead.

Gretchen and Alma flee the resort with help from Ed.