31 Days of Halloween: Grimcutty

2022, John Ross (Freaky Faron) -- Disney

I have an urge to watch a bunch of movies where people either summon a creature of legend (e.g. bloody mary, moth man, etc.) or at the very least get mixed up in an urban legend. Surprisingly this movie mixed up that aspect with parental "tiktok challenge" panics, not unlike the Satanic Panic of the 80s, but with more tangible results, i.e. they actually do summon.... something.

Asha Chaudry (Sara Wolfkind, Love All You Have Left) wants to a social media star, an "influencer", but doesn't really have a passion to sell to the world. Currently she is trying her hand at ASMR videos, which her parents don't get, and I am not sure she really gets either.

Of note, I am irrationally annoyed by ASMR. It is supposed to be an almost hypnotic effect created by whispering and soft scratching noises often accompanied by woo-woo imagery. I once spent a few weeks reading about it, trying it out, listening & watching, as so many people claim it is a good relaxation method. I just came away  in my usual Old Man Yelling at Clouds state, and one might claim, it had the opposite affect on me, in that it just makes me fucking pissed off whenever the topic comes up.

Then her parents hear about a "challenge" going around. Her father Amir (Usman Ally, A Series of Unfortunate Events) and another father, while they should be listening to Asha's brother quite skillfully play light jazz, end up discussing this challenge that they heard from a friend who heard from a friend. An image appears on the screen and soon kids are being asked to cut themselves, or worse. Nobody knows the origin or has ever seen the actual video, but they are still freaking out. Because, that is how this bullshit goes. Half the kids hearing about it are going to think their parents are idiots for believing it exists. The other half are going to actually try it, whether it exists or not, because they are the fucking idiots.

And then Asha actually sees the Grimcutty. Its a freaky tall, skinny creature with Cheshire Cat grin and shark teeth and white skin and a big knife. As it approaches, it tries to cut you, but anyone else will see you trying to cut yourself. Parents are panicking and trying to hide all their children's electronic devices, but its hitting the town like an epidemic. Asha is incensed, and needs to figure it out, but not because a creature is actually hurting things, but because she wants her toys back. OK, her motivations are somewhat unselfish once she sees how many of her friends it is affecting.

But she is desperate to create some sort of online identity for herself. The movie has a lot of fun playing both sides of the fence on this. Parents overreact, but kids do the stupidest shit just to be considered cool. TikTok is fucking malevolent and Mommy Bloggers can be downright evil influences. Eventually they trace the hysteria back to one such Mommy Blogger (Alona Tal, Supernatural), whose kid was the first victim. I am sure they leave the origin unexplained so they can have a followup "origin" movie, but suffice it to say that they learn enough from the encounter with the blogger and her son, to connect it to the hysteria the parents are experiencing.

At this point, Dad has gone off the deep end. The more amped up he gets, the worse and more frequent the Grimcutty appearances are. Mom (Shannyn Sossamon, A Knight's Tale) has begun to understand but its not until Dad sees Asha floating aloft in the air (held up by Grimcutty as it strangles her) that he finally believes something beyond the hysteria is going on, and sees his tie to it.

While there was a tenuous reason for this emergence of a panic induced creature, only seen by children, I did enjoy the execution of the story, and the creature itself was creepy AF.