Dashcam: Film Review
Rob Savage established himself as one to watch in the horror genre with the terrifying lockdown movie Host in 2020 so I had high hopes for his follow-up Dashcam but it is unfortunately nowhere near as smart or scary.
The film follows musician Annie Hardy (Annie Hardy playing a fictionalised version of herself), the host of BandCar, the “Internet’s #1 live improvised music show from a moving vehicle”. She basically drives around making up freestyle raps and livestreams most of her life from her iPhone. Bored of the lockdown in the US, Annie breaks protocol and flies to England to see her friend Stretch (Amer Chadha-Patel). She continues BandCar across the pond but everything goes wrong one night when she picks up the weird old lady Angela (Angela Enahoro).
Remember how disorientating found footage movies can be when the characters run while holding their cameras? Well, it’s ten times worse when the footage is shot on iPhones. The shaky camera movement honestly gave me a mild headache! It’s all over the place and most of the time, you can’t really tell what’s going on because it’s all one big messy blur. And it’s not just with running moments either – it’s basically any time something major happens because the characters are (naturally) more focused on survival at that time rather than clean, quality video.
Another big issue with the film is the lead character. Annie is incredibly annoying and she got on my nerves. I frankly didn’t care if she lived or died! Her raps and jokes – primarily about sex, dicks and ass – get very repetitive and boring after a while. She will be a divisive character for many viewers as an anti-vax, anti-mask MAGA hat-wearing woman who breaks lockdown to flee the country.
Host had an awesome concept, solid characters and relationships, and a tight, clear plot. Dashcam feels very flimsy by comparison; the whole story is thinly sketched and the dialogue is a bit crap. We don’t have a clue what’s going on most of the time and the explanation isn’t sufficient. It’s not as scary either but I still covered my eyes in anticipation for certain moments (someone walking into a pitch-black basement will always work on me). What it lacked in jump scares, it makes up for in gore though. It is pretty gross and bloody!
Dashcam had a cool concept and I was intrigued to see how Savage would bring his horror skills to a car-based story. But it just didn’t work for me. The film is chaotic and all over the place, much like the camerawork, and the viewing experience is stressful and not fun at all.
In cinemas from Friday 3rd June