Sara Wolfkind: 'Grimcutty' explores horror of parental power

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Sara Wolfkind said her movie, Grimcutty, which premieres Monday on Hulu, finds horror in the conflict between parents and teenagers.

Wolfkind plays Asha, a teenage YouTuber who begins to see the viral urban legend Grimcutty (Joel Ezra Hebner). The more her parents (Shannyn Sossamon, Usman Ally) interfere with her social media use, the more powerful Grimcutty gets.

"There's miscommunication between the parent or child or even teen, especially with the Internet," Wolfkind told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "There are some power dynamics between them."

Grimcutty appears to young people first online, and then in their homes, and makes them cut their parents. Grimcutty feeds off the parents' worry, so when one parent's story goes viral, it makes other parents inadvertently empower Grimcutty with their fears.

Ally said he saw Grimcutty as a metaphor for parents' conflict over protecting their children. As a new father, Ally said he discussed the theme with writer-director John Ross.

"You feel this tendency to overprotect because there is such a big, scary world out there," Ally said. "When does that turn into paranoia and actually harm the child as opposed to protect them?"

Ross said he hopes Grimcutty viewers respond to the theme of the dangers of overprotection, adding he expects the technology presented in Grimcutty to become obsolete before parents and children resolve their differences.

"You're worried that in five or 10 years, it's going to be horribly dated," Ross said. "The themes around the technology will be timeless, hopefully, and resonate with everybody regardless of what technology was around in their generation."

Wolfkind said she could relate to Asha because her own parents don't understand the Internet, adding they may be more scared than they need to be over something they don't understand.

"My parents are always like, 'Oh, are you doing this on the Instagram?'" Wolfkind said. "They don't know what's going on."

Wolfkind said she also enjoyed performing the Grimcutty attacks with Hebner.

"It was just scary because a lot of times a monster's chasing me," Wolfkind said. "It was just really fun with the monster."

Asha's videos are ASMR, in which hosts speak quietly to trigger Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Wolfkind said the ASMR videos were her biggest challenges on Grimcutty.

"John sent me videos and he gave me a mic to practice on," Wolfkind said. "It's a whole other art form I could never do."