Grimcutty Trailer: Moral Panic Meme-Ery Turns Monstrous And Murderous

Few things are as universally creepy as an old-fashioned urban legend. Kept alive through scary retellings at sleepovers and campfire tales, the information age ushered in by the internet had all but killed the wonder and fascination with these stories. That is until a new form of urban legend was born — the creepypasta. Slenderman is arguably the most well-known creepypasta, with the online meme unfortunately inspiring a very real murder attempt. This real-life violence has now allowed creepypastas to reignite the torch of power that the Internet extinguished from classic urban legends, and has given horror creatives a whole new playground to explore.

"Grimcutty" is the latest Hulu original horror film, a modern creature feature centering on a terrifying internet meme that incites a moral panic amongst the parents in a small town, believing an online meme is convincing their children to harm themselves and others. The threat is ignored until a real-life Grimcutty shows up and begins attacking a teenager named Asha Chaudry, whose parents believe her signs of attack are the result of a self-inflicted cutting challenge popularizing online. Now, it's up to Asha to figure out how to convince her parents that Grimcutty is real, and put a stop to its reign of terror.

The film was written and directed by John William Ross ("The Birch," "Bite Size Horror," "Sunny Family Cult") and stars Shannyn Sossamon (!!!!), Usman Ally ("A Series of Unfortunate Events," "Veep"), Alona Tal ("Seal Team"), and relative newcomer Sara Wolfkind as leading teen Asha Chaudry.

While the Grimcutty could be inspired by a number of different creepypastas, it's clear that this film is an homage to the 2019 Momo Challenge, where parents were convinced a creepy image that had gone viral was being put into videos on YouTube and TikTok, telling children to harm themselves or their parents. It was all a hoax, but the constant sharing of "warnings" by panicked parents on social media ended up actually scaring kids, who were then afraid to use the internet with the looming threat that Momo was going to pop up and scare them. I should know, I was an elementary school teacher at the time and had to attend multiple parent-teacher conferences and professional development sessions about it.

Hulu

Regardless of the inspiration, "Grimcutty" looks like a seriously fun horror movie, and the creature design is genuinely freaky. The promotional poster for the film shows an extreme close-up of the character's face, which will surely inspire nightmares in anyone who catches this visual on a bus stop bench or billboard. The film comes as part of the annual Huluween celebration, and depending on the gore factor, looks to be another great addition to the canon of transitionary horror films.

"Grimcutty" arrives on Hulu just in time for spooky season, October 10, 2022.