2024 Cuckoo is a disturbing and effective horror film that leads to a surprisingly bloody and emotionally resonant ending. Directed by Tilman Singer, Cuckoo centers on Hunter Schafer's Gretchen, an ordinary teenager forced to spend the summer with her estranged father, his wife, and her half-brother Alma. Moving to a remote resort in the German Alps, the picturesque setting takes on a sense of eerie menace thanks to Dr. Köning and his polite but forceful control of the resort. However, the mysteries surrounding the resort are increasingly unraveled and put Gretchen in danger, especially after she encounters a monstrous Red-Eyed Woman.
At the end of the film, Cuckoo revealed the connection between Alma and the mysterious woman, as well as why Köning has worked so hard to keep the resort's secrets hidden from the rest of the world. However, there are enough lingering threads that a possible sequel has plenty of material to explore. Here's what happens at the end of the horror movie Neon Cuckoo and how this could create more stories within the universe.
Is Alma still connected to the cuckoo?
His fate and relationship with the cuckoo were deliberately left ambiguous
One of the remaining topics of Cuckoothe end is Alma's fate and her connection to the Red-Eyed Woman. Cuckoo is largely focused on Gretchen, who is an unexpected wrinkle in Dr. Köning's plans. Although Gretchen is initially distant from her younger half-sister Alma, she becomes more defensive when she discovers that she is a descendant of the Red-Eyed Woman. This gives Alma some of the same abilities. However, all of her abilities need to be unlocked by reuniting with the Red-Eyed Woman, which would also alter Alma's mind.
Gretchen's efforts to protect her sister end up disrupting Dr. Köning's plans, as her escape from his traps with Henry's help allows her to interfere in the reunion between Alma and the Red-Eyed Woman. Gretchen even kills the monstrous villainpotentially freeing Alma from this fate. However, the film's ending suggests that Alma may retain some of the Red-Eyed Woman's physical characteristics and powers. This gives the end of Cuckoo a little mysterious touch that could be explored in future stories.
The red-eyed woman in the cuckoo explained
The nature of the threat it presents is mysterious
The Red-Eyed Woman is a mysterious and threatening force within Cuckoo. Although she is not necessarily behind the events of the film in the same way as Dr. Köning, she is the motivating factor behind his machinations. A new human-like life form, the Red-Eyed Woman has been using her abilities (which add many layers of supernatural terror to the Cuckoo) to attack and manipulate visitors to Dr. Köning's resort. A fearsome creature, the Red-Eyed Woman is capable of emitting a sound that incapacitates people, allowing her to attack them or disrupt their perception of time and memory.
She effectively infects children conceived there, causing them to develop potential abilities like hers. Dr. Köning seeks to foster the development of this species by explaining its isolated resource and machinations. The Red-Eyed Woman has been targeting people for years and uses her innate connection with her “children” to unleash their full potential. However, before she can do this to Alma, Gretchen manages to lure her out and even kill her. The Red-Eyed Woman is the closest thing Cuckoo It has to be an old school monsterand proves to be an effective threat.
Henry's true motivations and what happened to his wife
The Allie became a threat to Alma is a character full of nuances
One of Gretchen's only allies in Cuckoo It's Henry. Introduced as a detective investigating the resort, it is constantly revealed that Henry and his wife were former guests at the resort. However, their experience resulted in his wife's death. Henry's investigation is entirely self-focused as he seeks revenge for her loss. At first, this makes him exactly the kind of ally Gretchen needs. No one believes her about the Red-Eyed Woman anymore. Henry's investigative skills and prior experience make him crucial to not only protecting Gretchen, but also helping her evade capture.
However, the fact that he wants to kill everyone connected to the Woman, including Alma, makes Henry a dangerous wildcard in the film's third act. Gretchen not only has to work to avoid Dr. Köning, but also Henry. There is also the genuine truth that he may be right about Alma's dangerous qualities. Although she proves strong enough to help Gretchen escape and avoid the Red-Eyed Woman's open corruption, she could still prove to be a similar threat. However, Gretchen's refusal to attack her sister turns Henry from friend to reluctant enemy.
Do Köning and Henry die at the end of Cuckoo?
His final moments were not shown, but implied
Cuckoo there are several deathsespecially in the third act, once Gretchen was exposed to the truth about the Red-Eyed Woman and Dr. Many of Dr. Köning's allies, including his fellow doctors researching the new species, are killed by Henry or Dr. Köning himself. The monstrous Woman is killed by Gretchen after an intense game of cat and mouse. However, the last two major deaths remain somewhat unsolved. Upon discovering each other in the laboratory, Dr. Köning and Henry get into a shootout that only becomes more intense when Gretchen and Alma arrive.
The two manage to protect themselves from the gunmen, who hold back for fear of hitting the wrong person. However, as soon as the sisters left the room, two shots were heard. Considering that none of them ran out to stop the escape, it is implied that Dr. Köning and Henry killed themselves. However, as the timing is somewhat ambiguous, it would be possible that one or both of them would have escaped with their lives in a prospective follow-up.
How Cuckoo Sets Up a Sequel
Unanswered questions could lead to Cuckoo 2
The end of Cuckoo resolves the film's main threats, but leaves enough lingering threads that could be brought back for a follow-up. Although the Red-Eyed Woman was killed, it is possible that others like her continue to exist or evolve. There were other women who transformed similarly to Alma, who could eventually replace her. There's also the chance that Alma will eventually give in to this side of herself, fully unlocking her abilities and transforming into a more monstrous figure.
The continued existence of the new species could easily justify a follow-up, expanding their capabilities and full history. It is also possible that Henry or Dr. Köning survived the fateful shooting. Given their motivations and how things play out at the end of the film, it's possible that one or both of them will return, looking to finalize their original plans. There's also the possibility that Gretchen and Alma's father was more involved in the plan than he seemed, adding to the mystery that could be resolved with a sequel.
The true meaning of the cuckoo
Cuckoo is quietly a powerful film about growth and brotherhoodespecially when it comes to Gretchen and Alma. It is constantly revealed throughout the film that Gretchen was always closer to her mother than her father, especially after he left and had a new family. This divide remains between the two, but a softer divide steadily grows between Gretchen and Alma. This gets to the point where Gretchen is willing to risk her life in an attempt to try and rescue Alma, despite Henry explaining the dangers her survival presents to the world. Their bond becomes the most important remaining connection Gretchen has and underscores much of the film's climax.
One of Dr. Köning's machinations is to effectively isolate Gretchen for much of the film, separating her from her family, whether through the mundanity of a part-time job or through the more malicious efforts to keep her trapped at his resort. However, this emotional connection constantly proves to be an unshakable aspect of their relationship, and a key factor in Gretchen and Alma's survival. Despite different origins and family connections, the two are sisters. It's a surprisingly strong message that family bonds trump manipulation and generational pain, and it gives Cuckoo a soft core beneath the unsettling scares.
How Cuckoo's Ending Was Received
Responses to the final moments were mostly confusion
Cuckoo was well received by critics, being one of several high-profile horror films released in 2024. While praise was not universal, the 79% Tomatometer score maintained by the film in Rotten tomatoes shows that, for the most part, the reviews were positive. However, Although much was celebrated about director Tilman Singer's horror, the ending was presented by several critics in a less than positive light.
For example, critic Benjamin Lee pointed out in his review to The Guardian what the end of Cuckoo I felt a little bloated from the exposure. This, combined with some pacing issues, meant that the core message behind Cuckoo the final scenes were somewhat lost in the barrage of eerie visuals and intricate concepts. Although Lee highlighted many positive aspects of the film and noted the ambitious attempt that the ending of Cuckoo was, he and many other critics felt that the book got too caught up in its many moving parts:
“Singer's increasingly sloppy plotting starts to get in the way of the big picture in the frenzied last act, which is oddly filled with exposition but still lacks much point. Singer goes for big emotional punchlines about the importance of belonging and family but I still can't cobble together an explanation that fits.”
This sentiment has been echoed in several other reviews, such as Jessica Kiang's review for Variety. Like Benjamin Lee, Kiang felt that the end of Cuckoo It lost part of its potential due to too many things happening and the film trying to juggle too many elements at the same time:
“Despite Paul Faltz's bitingly elegant cinematography and Simon Waskow's beautiful 1980s-style synth score, Singer doesn't have anything quite as conceptual or “elevated” in mind. Or, if he does, he's excluded by the other 27 ways he wants to go crazy right then and there, some more successfully than others, and none of them even remotely explained by any of the increasingly elaborate exposition dumps that pepper the path to a unnecessarily prolonged gunfight ending.”
Ultimately, while Cuckoo was well received and is considered one of the strongest horror films of 2024, but was somewhat disappointed with the ending. If Tilman Singer had simplified things a bit, this probably wouldn't have been the case, and the end of Cuckoo could have elevated the film from a great horror to one of the best of the year. As it stands, however, the final moments of Neon 2024's surreal horror have created a lot of confusion for circuses and spectators alike.