On Sunday Streams, we will be bringing you films that are available for streaming. This week’s offering comes courtesy of new Cinema Crazed contributor Kirstie Keeton who you might remember as one of our Women in Horror Month interviewees in the past.
Rob Savage’s polarizing follow-up to 2020’s Host is now available for streaming on YouTube and Amazon Prime Video. If you can withstand all the visual whiplash, the bumpy tone and the constant squawking of the lead in this movie, you will end this film with an appreciation for how unique it is. You may even hate the fact that you actually enjoyed it. DASHCAM is a rarity in that way. Everything that should repel general audiences from it actually strengthens the punch. It is gory, frightening, disgusting, maddening, uncomfortable and above all, it is terrifying.
Set in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a brash American musician and vocal anti-vaxxer (Annie Hardy played by Annie Hardy) sets her sights across the pond to go stay with her friend, Stretch, once she becomes frustrated with the lockdown in the United States. After causing mayhem in London that nearly gets Stretch fired from his food delivery service job, Stretch and his girlfriend decide to kick Annie out. Annie proceeds to steal his car and phone – making his deliveries while livestreaming her shenanigans. As she goes out to fulfill a late night delivery, things go awry when she is met with a strange request – she must deliver an elderly passenger to a mysterious location. From there, Annie’s night takes a sadistic turn – going from this fearless anarchist to a terrified quarry.
We get no clear indication where this movie is headed, which is a huge positive throughout the film. No need to try and solve the mystery – we do not get very many clues as to what’s really going on. You will get so caught up in “running” with Annie and Stretch, that you come to the same realization our leads come to in the end – we still do not know exactly who we are running from or where we are running to! Annie is eccentric, unreliable and unpredictable. She goes against every convention you can possibly imagine. Politically incorrect and inherently selfish, her disgusting sense of humor is oddly comforting in the midst of all the terror. It is all offensive or borderline offensive, but it starts to become background noise when facing off with true “evil.” One moment, you are ready to turn the movie off because the lead is so annoying, the next you are distracted by the consistent threat to her life. The source of all the scares are coming from our “monsters” (naturally), but much like Annie, they also subvert conventions. The “Boogie Man” is not so easily defined when it is an elderly woman who is not all that she seems.
The whole film is a mad dash for survival – pun intended – that concludes in some nice set pieces we hardly get flashes of – namely, an abandoned amusement park and an old countryside manor straight out of an episode of Scooby Doo. Since we are watching these events through someone’s cell phone, we hardly have time to take in the locations anyways. Still, the effort with these locations is appreciated. They help enhance the jump scares. The special effects aren’t too extravagant so the fear comes from a grounded place. Most of the grisly sequences appear practical yet very effective.
Though the film’s style is one we have become overly familiar with due to previous horror box office smashes, like the The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, DASHCAM provides the ultimate “meta” experience by allowing us to watch the story unfold with the active social media audience. Anyone on social media can bear witness to a live trainwreck at least once or twice in their lifetime. Here, we get that experience by watching our lead interact with her digital audience for nearly the entire duration of the film.
There is a general uneasiness outside of the demonic presence that our leads are trying to escape from. Looking at the reception of the film, a lot of viewers have trouble getting past the fact that we are forced to follow a lead who we do not care for. Politics aside, as an audience, it is rough to sit through a film watching a lead with no redeemable qualities. This is where DASHCAM gets some praise for taking such a huge swing in the opposite direction. DASHCAM managed to upend the “final girl” archetype that has spawned so many horror film franchises so viciously that you have to give credit where it is due. This may not be a horror film that you want to revisit during your Halloween movie marathon, but this horror entry is one to be reckoned with.