There’s a compelling kernel of something interesting at the heart of Grimcutty, the new Hulu film by writer/director John Ross. The film is a treatise on hysterical helicopter parents, the dangers of social media challenges and the growing concern about how much screen time is healthy. These are valid (albeit not entirely new) concerns, and horror is a great lens through which to explore them.
The issue isn’t Grimcutty’s premise, but rather its execution. This is a messy film, complete with substantial logic gaps, more than one scenery-chewing performance, and a run time that isn’t earned by its relatively thin, repetitive script.
The film opens solidly: mother Melinda Jaynes (Alona Tal) locks her young son Brandon (Kayden Alexander Koshelev) in his bedroom at night, seemingly in an effort to protect him from the lurking figure of Grimcutty (Joel Ezra Hebner) outside. When Brandon sneaks out to grab a knife from the kitchen, he’s threatened by the huge monster who has broken in. Confronted with the creature in front of him, Brandon rushes to his mom…and stabs her.
This scene, and the Jaynes, will go unremarked upon until late in the film. Instead the action pivots to follow teenager Asha Chaudhry (Sara Wolfkind), a middle class suburban teen who has recently quit the track team to make ASMR videos for a non-existent YouTube audience. Asha’s parents Leah (Shannyn Sossamon) and Amir (Usman Ally) don’t understand their daughter’s decision, fearing that she’s depressed and fretting about the amount of time she spends online. They attempt to enforce “family phone free outings,” then get angry when she sneaks away to obsess about provocative influencer Cassidy Johnston (Tate Moore).
Amir and Leah’s concern grows when the group chat they belong to warns of Grimcutty, a new Internet challenge that encourages kids to self-harm. As they frantically conduct web research, Asha is attacked by the creature in the kitchen, but when the police arrive, neither her parents or the cops believe Asha.
The creature design is easily Grimcutty’s best asset. Sporting impossibly long, thin limbs and a giant oval head, Grimcutty is visually striking, particularly Hebner’s movements as the tall, imposing monster skitters through doors and down hallways.
Following what they believe to be a self-induced attack, Asha’s parents propose the family abandon their phones and laptops in a detox box, spouting cult-like phrases such as “Reclaim your focus game” and “cut your screen time in the meantime.” Despite likeminded efforts from other parents, the Grimcutty incidents spread and, in no time at all, kids are being yanked out of school and cut off from technology.
As an example of the speed and ridiculousness of parental hysteria (a modern day equivalent of “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”), Grimcutty kind of works. The problem is that as Asha, Cassidy and Asha’s “Dark Web” using techno-genius younger brother Kamran (Callan Faris) band together to uncover the origins of the social media urban legend, it’s hard to disregard the ridiculous plot contrivances of the adults’ plans.
Grimcutty exists in a fictitious world that posits that if parents took away phones and laptops, teens would have no opportunity to go online. Apparently there are no internet cafes, libraries or coffee shops in the unnamed town where the film is set? Even in a small town, it would be impossible to remove teens’ access, which renders the vast majority of the film completely unbelievable.
Then there’s the suggestion that Amir and Leah can afford to stay home indefinitely in order to police their children, while at school, administrators have disconnected all of the computers and begun forcibly removing students who protest the “fascist” new regime (the word is used twice, with one character insisting they’ll go to the police if her parents try to take her phone).
Thankfully Wolfkind is a compelling lead, so even when the plot is janky, watching Asha solve the mystery is engaging. Her relationship with Kamran is one of the strongest character-driven elements in the film (the siblings affectionately refer to each other as “stupid” and “jerk,” which feels spot-on). And while Cassidy is an intriguing counterpoint to Asha, frequently remarking that Asha is not as Zen as she presents in her ASMR videos, Moore doesn’t get nearly enough screen time. Plus: a third act reveal about Cassidy’s history with suicide feels woefully brief and emotionally manipulative.
Unfortunately the teens are much more fleshed out than the adults. Sossamon, sporting an astonishingly cruel haircut that’s the most memorable part of her character, doesn’t get much to do. She does, however, come off better than Ally, whose Amir does nothing but overreact, scream and thunder about for most of the film. In one confounding moment, Amir yells at his wife: “They’ve tried it before. They use our networks to incite violence…against a particular community like ours.” This is the film’s sole acknowledgement that the Chaudry family are POC, but exactly who the “they” Amir is referring to or in what context, is never unpacked. The line is tone deaf and feels uncomfortably out of place.
It’s ultimately a huge issue that all of the adults are one-dimensional: they don’t listen, they don’t believe and they don’t trust their kids. And it’s boring. The film keeps going back to the same tired generational debate about the dangers of being online, which might have worked in a period film, but in 2022 feels incredibly outdated (memo to filmmakers: the Internet isn’t new!). Clearly Grimcutty is drawing on concerns about real-life social media challenges and even true crime incidents like Slenderman, but the examination of these issues is too surface level and obvious.
While some of the action set pieces are entertaining, like Asha’s escape from Grimcutty at a crowded party and a dangerous confrontation in the Jaynes house, they’re simply not strong enough to counteract the film’s repetitive message about parents, teens and the Internet. Clocking in at one hundred minutes, Grimcutty feels about forty minutes too long.
It’s a shame because the film has a creepy monster design and a solid lead performance by Wolfkind. Overall, however, Grimcutty simply doesn’t have enough to say and it dramatically overstays its welcome. Fans of Hulu’s Into The Dark or “Welcome to the Blumhouse” series may find it satisfying, but in an oversaturated horror market with so many other strong titles, Grimcutty simply isn’t memorable enough to stand out.
