SPOILER WARNING: The following article gives away some crucial details about Cuckoo and a couple of other horror titles starring Dan Stevens, so be cautious as your read on.
It has been a truly wild and weird year for horror movies and I believe that Cuckoo is, easily, among the absolute weirdest. However, I would also call writer and director Tilman Singer’s thriller – about an American teenager wrapped up in a deadly, otherworldly situation after her family moves to a German resort – one of the best horror movies of the year, with a great deal of credit due to Dan Stevens.
The English actor is best known for period dramas like Downton Abbey and Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast remake, for instance. Yet, his performance in Cuckoo is only the latest just the last few years that make him deserving of the horror movie icon status that he, unjustly, he has yet to be recognized as. So, as a horror fan, I thought I would try to give Stevens a boost in notoriety by highlighting a few of his most notable, scene-stealing contributions to the genre in recent memory, starting with the magic he works in the 2024 movie.
Dan Stevens Plays A Brilliantly Eccentric Villain In Cuckoo
As many critics have said about Cuckoo, and I certainly agree, the perplexingly strange story is carried magnificently by Hunter Schafer’s lead performance as the angsty but resourceful horror movie character, Gretchen. Yet, critics and myself also believe the show is stolen right from underneath the Euphoria cast member by Dan Stevens.
He dons a German accent – which he previously adopted, along with relearning the native language, for 2021’s I’m Your Man – to play Herr König, the manager of a hotel in the Bavarian Alps that acts as a front for preserving a rare breed of half-human, half-bird creatures. His devilishly upbeat and shamelessly surreal approach to the role lends perfectly to the supremely odd thriller and, in my opinion, saves it from being almost too alienating by making it more fun.
I Also Think Dan Stevens Is The Best Thing About Abigail
Cuckoo is not the only new horror movie that Stevens lent his talents to this year. He also appears in Radio Silence’s star-studded vampire movie, Abigail, as “Frank” – one of six anonymous criminals participating in a ransom plot that involves kidnapping someone’s young daughter, who is not quite what she seems.
While still considering the gloriously over-the-top, bloody gore and Alisha Weir’s astonishing work in the title role, I think Stevens is genuinely the best thing about the movie and easily gives the best performance. Even before he let out the big guns when Frank became the final act’s vampiric big bad, I was absolutely entranced by his ability to make his otherwise despicable role of a corrupt former police detective surprisingly charismatic.
His Cabinet Of Curiosities Role Was Really Something Else, Too
One of the strongest cases of Stevens’ genius as a horror scene-stealer is his appearance in one of the best episodes of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, “The Outside” stars Kate Micucci as Stacey, who grows so desperate to fit in with her coworkers that she compulsively uses a popular lotion called Alo Glo, despite its physically damaging effect on her.
However, it makes perfect sense why she was coerced into purchasing and continuing to use this dehumanizing product when you consider who told her to get it in the first place: Dan Stevens. His relatively brief turn as an eerily charming infomercial host who speaks to Stacey through the TV is one of the most brilliant and memorable performances in the inventive horror anthology TV show on Netflix.
These are only a few of the most notable and recent examples of how Dan Stevens’ unique approach to acting in horror movies has made his contributions to the genre more interesting. There are plenty more to seek out, such as his lead performance in 2014’s The Guest, and plenty more where those came from with his upcoming role opposite Al Pacino as a priest in The Ritual.