Grimcutty Movie Review

At the heart of Hulu's new movie, Grimkutty, from writer/director John Ross is the compelling origin of Something Interesting. The film is a treatise on the dangers of violent parenting, the challenges of social media, and the growing concern about healthy screen time. These are valid (though not entirely new) concerns, and horror is a great lens to explore them.

The problem isn't Grimkatty's premise, but its execution. It's a muddled film with ample logical flaws, more of a chewing performance, and a runtime that wasn't won over by its relatively thin and repetitive script.

The film opens solidly: mother Melinda Janes (Alona Tal) locks her son Brandon (Kayden Alexander Koshelev) in his bedroom at night, apparently being held by the hidden figure of Grimcutty (Joel Ezra Hebner). When Brandon sneaks into the kitchen to get a knife, he is threatened by a giant monster that has invaded the kitchen. Confronted by the creature in front of him, Brandon approaches his mother... and stabs her to death.

This scene and Jones will go unnoticed until the end of the film. Instead, the action tends to follow teenager Asha Chowdhary (Sarah Wolfkind), a middle-class suburban teen who recently quit Track Crew to make ASMR videos for a non-existent YouTube audience. Asha's parents, Leah (Shannin Sossamon) and Amir (Osman Aly) don't understand their daughter's decision, fearing that she is depressed and worried about her time online. They try to implement a "phone-free family outing" and are furious when she runs away to obsess over provocative influencer Cassidy Johnson (Tate Moore).

Amir and Leah's concern grows when their group launches an alert about Grimcutty, a new internet challenge that encourages children to harm themselves. As they frantically scour the web, Asha is attacked by the creature in the kitchen, but when the police arrive, neither her parents nor the police believes Asha.

The creature's design is easily Grimkatty's best feature. Possessing impossibly long, thin limbs and a giant oval head, Grimkutty is visually striking, especially Hebner's actions as the tall, giant monster walks through doorways and hallways.

Asha's parents, after what they believe to be a self-inflicted attack, offer the family to throw their phones and laptops into a rehab box, saying "Get your game back. Concentration" and "While you wait, do your homework". cult phrases like "minimize screen time". , "Despite similar efforts by other parents, serious incidents spread, and before long, children were being pulled out of school and isolated from technology.

As an example of how quick and ridiculous parental hysteria is (a modern equivalent of "Doesn't anyone want to think about the kids?"), the grimcutty style works. Trouble is Asha's "dark web" Cassidy and Asha's tech-genius younger brother Kamran (Calen Farris) team up to uncover the origins of a social media urban legend, making it difficult for the ridiculous adult machinations to ignore. Schemes.

Grimcutty exists in a fantasy world that believes that if parents take away phones and laptops, teenagers will have no way to access the Internet. Are there no internet cafes, libraries, or cafes in the seemingly undisclosed city where the film is set? Even in a small town, it would be impossible to suppress teenage access, which makes the vast majority of the film completely unbelievable.

then suggests that Amir and Leah can stay home indefinitely to control their children while school administrators disconnect all computers and begin forcibly expelling students, who are new "fascists". "Resisting the regime (the word is used twice, with one character insisting he would go to the police if his parents tried to take his phone)".

Fortunately, Wolfkind has a compelling lead, so even when the plot is crazy, it's fascinating to watch Hope solve the mystery. Her relationship with Kamran is one of the film's strongest elements (the brothers affectionately call each other "donkey" and "goonga", which feels right). And while Cassidy is an intriguing foil to Asha, often commenting that Asha isn't as zen as she portrays in her ASMR videos, Moore doesn't have enough screen time. Plus, a third act reveals that Cassidy's suicide story feels too concise and emotionally manipulative.

Unfortunately, juveniles are much more muscular than adults. Sossamon, who has a surprisingly brutal haircut that is the most memorable part of his character, doesn't have much to do. However, she does better than Aly, whose Aamir rants, screams, and howls for most of the film. In a confused moment, Amir shouts to his wife, "They already tried. They use our network to incite violence...against a specific community like ours. It's the film's only acknowledgment that the Choudhary family is POC, but exactly what "they" Aamir is talking about or what context it is never unpacked in. Rekha is deaf and feels uncomfortable.

Ultimately, it's a big problem that all adults are one-dimensional: they don't listen, don't believe, and don't trust their children. And it's boring. The film keeps returning to the same tired generational debate about the dangers of being online, which might have worked in a period piece but feels incredibly out of date in 2022 (memo to filmmakers: the internet is not new!) Obviously, Grimcutty is based on concerns about real social media challenges and even real criminal phenomena like Slenderman, but examining these issues is too shallow and elusive.

While some of the action set-pieces are fun, like Asha's escape from Grimcutty at a crowded party and a dangerous confrontation at Jaynes' house, they're not strong enough to counter the film's repetitive message about parents, teens, and the Internet..., Grimkutty takes forty minutes to get into the hundred.

It's a shame because the movie has a scary monster design and a solid lead performance by Wolfkind. Overall, though, Grimkutty doesn't have enough to say and seems to be overdoing his welcome. Fans of Hulu's Into the Dark or "Welcome to the Blumhouse" series might find it satisfying, but in a horror market with so many other strong titles, Grimmkutty just isn't memorable enough to stand out.

I would give this movie a 2/5 rating.