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If described in a word, John Ross’ Grimcutty is about pretenses. On the face of it, the film is about social media addiction and its impact on child-parent relationships. However, the film also looks at parents and their unintentional hypocrisy when it comes to taking care of the future generations with regards to technology.
The film released on Hulu on October 10, 2022.
Grimcutty’s synopsis reads:
"A suburban teen girl and her little brother must stop a terrifying internet meme brought to life by the hysteria of their parents."
It features actors Sara Wolfkind as Asha Chaudhry, Shannyn Sossamon as Leah Chaudhry, Usman Ally as Amir Chaudhry, and Callan Farris as Kamran Chaudhry. Meanwhile, Joel Ezra Hebner plays the role of the titual monster, Grimcutty.
Both Amir and Leah want their children to cut their screen time. Ironically, however, they also need to skim through blog posts and online lessons in order to deal with their teenage kids.
The family began cracking after Amir and Leah's daughter, Asha, saw Grimcutty in reality, but her parents refused to believe her.
The film is a reminder of the barrage of deaths that took place due to the infamous Blue Whale Challenge on social media a few years ago.
Grimcutty review: The Hulu film and its monster is the physical manifestation of the parents’ hysteria
The film began with a strained relationship between Asha and her parents.
Asha is an aspiring influencer who has quit track against her parents wishes. Her profession, at the same time, is something her parents are unable to wrap their heads around. Their instinctive reaction is to brand Asha as dealing with undiagnosed anxiety and depression, the root cause of which, according to them, is her addiction to her phone and social media.
Kamran, Asha's younger brother, on the other hand, fits Leah and Amir's checklist and is seen as the more desirable child. Amir, for instance, is happy with Kamran’s interests of playing the saxophone, but calls his daughter’s influencer dream “weird stuff.”
The sight of a bi-racial family as the lead of an American film is a breath of fresh air. Grimcutty does not try and stereotype the Indian-American father, nor does it carry any ethnic peculiarities on to Asha and Kamran. They are two U.S.-born kids who talk and eat like Americans simply because they were born and raised there.
However, it is not the Americanization of his kids that bothers Amir. He is perplexed by the penetrating influence of social media and technology into their lives. His idea of a solution for this is an isolation policy in the form of “Detox Box.”
Invented by another concerned parent in a blog post, the “Detox Box” is a briefcase with a lock that all the family's gadgets are locked into for a week. However, this does not go down well with Asha, who is reluctant to let go of her phone, because of her social media presence.
Both Amir and Leah failed to understand Asha’s non-compliance in the situation. Things turned awry after the parents' hysteria invited the Joker-esque Grimcutty to their house one night. The lanky monster with needle-sharp teeth is only visible to children. It compels them to kill themselves with a knife or a sharp object, while making it look like self-harm or suicide.
The monster looks freaky, but does well to create a few jump-scare moments.
Both Leah and Amir are concerned about their children and the sudden outbreak of the Grimcutty frenzy. However, instead of communicating with their children, the couple decides to go online for further information, which lands them on the “Detox Box.”
It is ironic as they seem addicted to the same agents that they claim are distracting their kids. Social media has become a way for them to not just keep a check on their children, but also find solutions online.
The film does not blame either the teenage kids or the parents, but looks at social media and technology addiction as a collective problem. However, the film doesn't do enough to set the context for the psychology behind social media challenges. Nor does it try and explain how distant and unrelated, yet global peer pressure is at work in such social media challenges.
Grimcutty’s social relevance spurts into a post-coronavirus pandemic world, where everything is commanded by technology and social media. From the work from home scenarios to the phenomenon of online classes, life in the 21st century is intricately connected with technology.
The intricacies are perfectly portrayed through Asha reaching out for her phone first thing in the morning. Even when her eyes are barely open and her head is still buried in the pillow, she doesn't seem to be based in the present.
In situations and cases like these, checks on children's social media could act detrimental to the latter’s welfare, and could even lead to trust issues.
There's a scene about this in Grimcutty where Amir finds out about Kamran's communications with the dark web and a search history pocked with topics considered peculiar by his generation. He lashes out at Kamran despite the latter explaining that the searches were out of curiousity about topics discussed among friends.
Grimcutty, therefore, is the physical manifestation of the parents’ hysteria. While they want their kids to be truthful, their overprotection backfires and often ends up causing bigger issues.
The film portrays the need for parents to stop, listen and trust their children instead of pretending to be at par with the current generation. Children, on the other hand, need to be honest, as Asha says at the end of the film.
In addition to the parent-child relationship, the film also throws light on social media pressure, or the reel versus the real life of influencers.
Asha disseminates ideas on how to deal with anxiety on her YouTube channel, but in reality, she is quite the opposite to her screen personality. Asha’s character is a mirror to the pressure that teenage kids face in order to look “chill” and “Zen-like.”
Despite having some good horror content, Grimcutty comes with its own package of loopholes. While the ending hinted at a possible sequel, the absence of the same could throw questions such as: why does Grimcutty just use knives and similar objects? What are his origins?
Apart from the questions and remarks, Grimcutty is a dependable horror flick that is unlikely to disappoint.
Performances are average in Grimcutty, but Usman Ally stands out as Amir Chaudhry
While all the other performances in Grimcutty were pretyy average, the one that stood out was Usman Ally as Amir Chaudhry. A protective father whose intincts turn into an addiction which lead to him potentially jeopardizing his kids' lives, Ally played the role to the T.
Scenes where his anger seems pretty self-destructive, Amir and Grimcutty could almost be interchanged but the two have their differences.
Grimcutty is currently streaming on Hulu.
