ComingSoon Senior Editor Spencer Legacy spoke with director John William Ross, lead actress Sara Wolfkind, and lead actor Usman Ally about Hulu’s horror film Grimcutty and its approach to memetic horror. Grimcutty is now available for streaming on Hulu.
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“In this modern creature feature, a scary internet meme called ‘Grimcutty’ stirs up panic amongst all the parents in town, convinced it’s making their kids harm themselves and others,” reads the film’s synopsis. “When a real-life version of Grimcutty starts attacking teen Asha Chaudry, her parents believe that she’s cutting herself as part of a challenge. With her phone taken away and no one who believes her, Asha has to figure out how to get through to her parents and stop the Grimcutty once and for all.”
Spencer Legacy: This movie takes inspiration from the Momo and Slenderman internet phenomena. What about this memetic horror appealed to you?
John William Ross: What grabbed me was the generational disconnect between what parents thought it was and what kids thought it was. It exposed the difference in the kids’ relationship to technology versus parents’ relationship to technology and that generational divide. The Momo Challenge … parents were kind of freaking out about it and kids were just like, “Huh, what is it?” That was just ripe for satire, and there were just so many possibilities for commentary in there that I just dove in.
Sara, what about Grimcutty drew you to the project when you first heard about it?
Sara Wolfkind: I think, at first, it was the name. I just auditioned for it like any other audition, but I saw the name, I was like, “Huh, okay.” And I read the sides, [but] I didn’t get the whole script yet, and I really connected with the character Asha. I love horror and I love screaming, and I love running from a monster. Once I got more of what was happening in it, I was like, “Wow, this is really interesting. The relationship between the teenagers and their parents.” So when everything came together, I was just drawn in by it all.
Usman, going off of John’s theme of that disconnect, your character starts from a place of love and becomes more paranoid. How did you go about portraying that process?
Usman Ally: I think it was just important to root the character in truth, which is honestly what you would do with any character regardless of the genre of film or that you’re working on. So we wanted to make it clear that he was just kind of a nice, loving dad who really wanted [what was] best for his kids, but that very quickly, he starts to feed into what people are saying or what things he sees. And that fear turns into a level of paranoia that is almost like — I kept coming back to this on set — that it’s almost like an affliction, you know? That he’s afflicted by this thing that is making him behave irrationally around his children to the point where he becomes a threat to them in his own right. John and I had a lot of conversations on set about tracking that journey for the character — where he starts and where he ends. And to always know that even though, at the end of the day, you’re in a movie that has this giant monster or this creature, that you can still find these real potent moments of truth that exist within the character and how they relate to each other.
Ross: Going off what Usman is saying, Usman did such a great job of playing this guy who’s likable and, even though he descends down this dark path, you always get a sense that there’s this likable guy still in there. It’s not like a guy who’s becoming this domineering patriarch or something. You always get the sense that it’s this likable guy who’s been led astray and you want Asha to rescue him. Usman, I thought you just did such a really good job of capturing that and conveying that emotionally on screen.
Ally: Thank you.
John, Grimcutty also delves into how easily hysteria can spread in the internet age. What made that theme important to you?
Ross: I wrote it before the pandemic, but then the pandemic exacerbated all these feelings of how is the internet and social media and the 24-hour news cycle affecting our brains. Definitely during the pandemic, I was being stressed out and I did a social media detox for myself. It worked. It had a big effect on me. So I think spending a lot of time online and on social media can fill people with a lot of anxiety and tension. I just hope by turning that into a horror film, it gets people thinking about how they can get that under control in their own life. If it gets people thinking about that then I’ll be happy.
Sara, your character’s journey throughout the film goes from being a victim of Grimcutty and hiding to actively searching for it to kill it, leading to that intense ending. What was it like to play so many different sides of a character as they developed?
Wolfkind: Ooh, I think I just followed where the story, … I feel like, as any person, you would try to … I don’t know, if it’s really afflicting you as a person, I would try to uncover what’s happening. I think that’s what Asha’s doing as well. It’s discovering “why is this happening?” She’s trying to solve the problem and the stakes get higher, her parents get more hysteric, and she needs to solve it. Films are never filmed in order, so it was like, “Okay, what do I want in this scene?” Usman’s smiling because we were making jokes about objectives and all that. It’s just like … human moments and she grows. I feel like it’s a little coming-of-age story about her growing into her own person, and I related to that too. So human-to-human I related.
Ross: Sara, I thought you did such a really good job of tracking that character’s growth. Over time, throughout the course of the movie, you definitely feel this journey that she goes on. It was out of order. It was crazy. That you’re able to keep that honed in — I’m really proud of you for that. It’s a really great performance.
