Deep in the forests of Germany, there is a resort, a quaint getaway nestled right at the bottom of the Bavarian Alps. Step out of your car, and you immediately feel like you’re stepping into a postcard; you half expect men in lederhosen, hoisting large steins of Pilsner, to greet you as walk toward the lobby. It’s so picturesque that you might not notice the strange noise emanating from within the woods right next to the guest houses. It’s faint, but very shrill. Something feels weird about that sound, but then again, this region is near where the Brothers Grimm set their fairy tales. And fairy tales are often filled with monsters.

This is where Cuckoo, the creepy new film from German director Tilman Singer (Luz), takes place, and while horror movies do not necessarily rely on the holy trinity of real estate — “Location, location, location” — this setting adds immensely to the immediate feel of unease. One look, and you quickly wonder when, not if, the big bad wolf will make his or her presence known. It doesn’t help that the hotel’s inhabitants have a tendency to wander the lobby in a daze and/or start vomiting uncontrollably. Or that that the unsettling shrieking in the distance keeps getting louder, especially after dark. Or that these sonic blasts have a tendency to cause the film’s visuals to pulse and rewind everything back five to six seconds.

That’s one of the aesthetic tics that Singer utilizes to suggest something wicked this way is coming, or rather, that’s it’s already here and patiently setting a trap. Cuckoo will eventually answer your questions (most of them, anyway; there are loose ends abound). But for now, it’s content to simply unnerve you in the most stylish, Argentoesque way possible. Our guide for this Euro-horror nightmare is Gretchen (Hunter Schaefer). A teenager still grieving the loss of her mother and resentful of her stepmother (Jessica Henwick) — we told you it had fairy-tale vibes — she’s been reluctantly conscripted into living in Germany with Dad (Marton Csokas), his second wife and their mute seven-year-old daughter (Mila Lieu). Gretchen would much rather be back home, playing music with her Jesus-and-Mary-Chain–ish shoegaze band. Instead, she’s stuck in Bavaria, with nothing but her bike, her bass and a butterfly knife to keep her company. Three guesses as to which of those items is going to come in real handy soon.

The resort is run by Herr König (Dan Stevens, toggling between an out-rrrrrr-ageous German accent or a better-than-decent impersonation of Christoph Waltz), who couldn’t be happier that the family has returned to his little patch of Saxon paradise. Seven years ago, Gretchen’s father and his new spouse honeymooned at the resort. Their stay resulted in her stepsister — a girl who Gretchen semi-tolerates and Herr König pays particular attention to. One afternoon, as that strange noise rings out from within the woods, the area below the child’s throat begins to rapidly flutter and she has a fit. Later that night, while Gretchen is riding home on her bike, she notice another shadow on the ground besides her own — someone seems to sprinting directly behind her, hands grasping at her shoulder. When she gets a look at her pursuer, it appears to be an older lady, wearing a trenchcoat and sunglasses long after the sun has gone down. And then shit gets really weird.

There are other, more peripheral bit of information that soon come into play, such as the fact that König has diversified his portfolio and invested in a local clinic just down the road from the resort. There’s also a former police detective (Jan Bluthardt) who’s sniffing around for answers regarding the mysterious occurrences around the joint, and has a personal connection to the what’s going on. Also, did you know that in addition to be known for popping out of clocks and warbling on the hour, the animal that gives the film its title is a “brood parasite” — as in, it lays eggs in other birds’ nests and lets them raise and nurture them as if it were their own?

Cuckoo also doubles as pretty good description of the film itself, though even that may be too mild an adjective — judges would have also accepted Batshit, Whoa! and Oh My God Wait What the Fuck?! as alternative names. Singer seems to be going for a late-period giallo vibe here, when the subgenre entered its baroque period and begin laying the more outré elements extra thick. (See: the original Suspiria.) The sunglasses and overcoat get-up of the movie’s in-house maniac also signify a love of Italy’s classic slasher-a-go-go entries, and there’s an overall lurid feeling that taps into the underbelly legacy of the best, boundary-pushing Euro-horror flicks of the 1970s and ’80s.

You don’t have to know where Cuckoo is coming from or where it ends up going, of course, to appreciate how Hunter Schaefer leans into her role with both an impressive sense of commitment and enthusiastic embrace of the crazier, kookier aspects of the story. The Euphoria star has not only gone on record as being a huge horror fanatic but also that she wanted to make her mark as “a badass thriller bad bitch with a knife in her mouth” (her words, not ours), to which we can only say: Job well done. And let us officially say that we’re 100-percent behind Dan Stevens‘ ongoing career pivot from dapper leading hunk (U.K. division) to playing kooks, freaks and scenery-chewing nutjobs. The two of them hold the film up when it starts to sag in spots, or when the sensation that the creepazoid bells and whistles and over-the-top motherhood allegories are lapping the logistics becomes a tad too much. Look at it through the lens of a dual star vehicle that isn’t afraid to sacrifice coherence in the name of cheap thrills, and this bird only slightly sings off-key. Just don’t tell the Bavarian tourist board.

Warning: The following review contains some spoilers and discusses domestic violence.

With her cascading blonde hair, long legs, and toothpaste-commercial smile, Blake Lively is the epitome of the sun-kissed California beauty. It was actually a little far-fetched that she played some sort of Upper East Side princess in Gossip Girl—she’s surf boards and Laguna Beach all the way. But we bought it, mostly because her primary purpose on that show was to be the foil to the jealous Blair, who wanted the effortless charm that Lively’s Serena possessed.

In It Ends With Us, based on Colleen Hoover’s wildly popular novel (as seen on TikTok!), Lively does not have blond hair, but a mess of cooperative red curls, the sort that exist far more often in romance novels than real life. She wears flowy, artfully mismatched clothing—I spied some Magnolia Pearl, notorious for their expensive schmattas; she also seems to favor these architecturally complicated chainmail boots. She opens a flower shop in Boston, straight out of a “Bohemian Flower Shop” Pinterest board. It’s all a little ridiculous. It seems like cosplay.

Lively’s incongruous casting is a perfect metaphor for the film, which also seems to be suffering from an identity crisis.

At first, It Ends With Us seems like a love story. Lively’s Lily Blossom Bloom—yes, the film makes fun of the name, which feels like cheating since they’re the ones who gave her the name—meets hunky neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni, who also directs) on a rooftop. (For the record, they also make fun of his soap-opera-ready name. Again, YOU NAMED HIM THAT.) She’s up there contemplating her father who just died, but whom she didn’t really love. (More on that in a bit.) Ryle comes on the roof to vent about something—he assaults a chair. Knowing that the film was ultimately going to be about domestic violence, I thought this was a good touch. They’re showing that he has a bad temper. And yet, for a while, Ryle is nothing but a dreamboat. Although he’s a notorious playboy, he vows to change his ways for Lily. He’s doting, sincere, patient. There’s a minor road block once it’s discovered that Ryle is the brother of Lily’s best friend, Allysa (Jenny Slate, here to save us). But their love cannot be stopped! With Allysa’s blessing, Ryle and Lily get married.

Okay, but let’s back-up a bit. In flashbacks, we also see glimpses of Lily’s first love, a homeless boy named Atlas (stop laughing). In those flashbacks, Lily is played by Isabela Ferrer and Atlas is played by Alex Neustaedter, who both only glancingly resemble their older counterparts. The flashbacks here are doing a lot of heavy lifting: They’re showing us Lily’s first love and showing us that Lily’s father beat Lily’s mother and eventually Atlas, when he discovers the boy in bed with his daughter—but they feel perfunctory. Baldoni seems much more interested in the scenes depicting Lily’s adult life (maybe because he’s in them?).

And then Ryle hits Lily. It kind of comes out of nowhere. This film would’ve been notably better if they’d established Ryle’s violent tendencies—getting jealous at a bar, maybe, or being enraged when his much-loved Bruins lose a game. Yes, we saw him assault that chair on the roof, but that was it. Beyond that, he was Prince Charming. Ryle gaslights Lily (and to a certain extent us) into thinking it was an accident. (The film intentional holds back on showing us the extent of his violence until later on.) Lily covers her bruise with some makeup and they go out for dinner with Allysa and her affable husband (Hasan Minhaj). The waiter looks kinda familiar? You guessed it, it’s Atlas, all grown up now and sporting a non-threatening beard (he’s played as an adult by Brandon Sklenar). He’s not just their waiter, he’s the restaurant’s owner and chef. (He is the Swiss Army Knife of convenient plot contrivances.)

Atlas sees the hastily covered bruise on Lily’s face and immediately groks what’s going on, even if she refuses to see it. He and Ryle fight and this is the beginning of the end, as Ryle becomes consumed by jealousy.

I experienced a fair amount of cognitive dissonance watching It Ends With Us—it plays like a sun-dappled romance that suddenly turns violent. (Apparently some people, expecting it to be an uncomplicated love story, felt deceived by the sudden change in tone.)

I appreciate the fact that this is ultimately a film—and book—about ending the cycle of violence. We’ve evolved past the “fall in love with your rapist” trope, thank goodness. But it feels like they want to have their cake and eat it, too, here—a hot romance with beautiful people and a “you go, girl” film about a woman rejecting her violent lover. And then there’s Atlas—chef, waiter, restaurant owner, former homeless kid turned bearded king—waiting in the wings. Is the answer to leaving your abusive husband having a better alternative on deck?

In one of the interviews for Checkmate, I heard Anoop Menon talking about why he decided to do the film eventually. His wife told him that as he is anyway doing a lot of trashy movies these days, why don’t he just do this one too? Well, the end result of that push from his better half has only resulted in the creation of a film that can damage your brain cells. Checkmate is basically an amateur short film that got good funds to enhance its production quality. With a generic story getting tortured by silly screenplay experiments, the movie from Ratish Sekhar is easily the best thing you can recommend to your enemy.

Phillip Kurien, the head of a pharma company that is facing allegations of illegal drug trials, is our central character. His partner Jessy is trying to help him from all the legal troubles by doing her bit. What we ultimately see in the film is the history of these two, the people connected with them, and what they had to go through because of their inhuman actions.

It actually took a while for me to understand the whole story because the film’s screenplay has this nature of going after characters pointlessly for a long time. The narrative shifts from 3 months ago, 12 months ago, the day of the kidnap, 5 minutes before the kidnap, etc., in a very pretentious way to make the audience feel that some sophisticated filmmaking is happening. But the dialogues, be it the Malayalam ones or the English ones, are so theatric that some of them reminded me of that Vipranasam short film. Looking at the way the writing gets lost in unnecessary subplots, you would feel like poking the director to cut the chase and come to the point multiple times during the film.

Anoop Menon appears in multiple looks in the film, and the very first one reminded me of that deleted scene in the climax of Mohanlal’s Mr. Fraud. The guy who sat behind me was saying, “What happened to Khureshi-Ab’raam?” The name of the character might well be Phillip Kurien, but Anoop Menon makes sure that Phillip will act like Anoop Menon. This is perhaps the second misleading thing Lal has been a part of after that rummy ad. Rekha Harindran, who makes her debut through the film, has won the Kerala Film Critics Award for her performance in this movie. Being someone who reviews films, I just want to clarify that I have no association with that organization. There are a lot of debut actors in the film, and I think they all have this hope that the audience would applaud them, like how families root for kids in kindergarten during the annual day performance.

The story, screenplay, music, cinematography, and direction of the film are handled by Ratish Sekhar, and by the end of it, you should feel that he shouldn’t have burdened himself with all those responsibilities. The camera movements are so poor that even the short films made in Kerala with minimal budget have better visual sensibility. Shot division and camera angles are so bizarre. The visuals change from a medium close-up to a low-angle one in split seconds without any motivation, and the editing done by Prejish Prakash with far too many unnecessary cuts would make you think that he was getting paid for the number of cuts. There is a fight sequence towards the end inside a boxing academy, and the conversations that happen after the goons realize they have kidnapped the wrong person is unintentionally comical.

Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you’re a director. This is a quote by the great James Cameron. What he forgot to mention was that show it to your friends and family and don’t release it in theaters.