Notable Cast: Annie Hardy, Amar Chadha-Patel, Angela
Enahoro
After taking the horror world by storm with his Zoom séance
nightmare known as Host, director Rob Savage became an overnight
sensation in the genre cinema world. If he could pull off that kind of
effective horror filmmaking in 60+ minutes with minimal resources in the middle
of a pandemic where all of the stars were quarantined, what could he do with
more? It’s the question that often gets asked of stylistic and bold indie
filmmakers and many of them flounder under the expectations of larger studio
pressures or other external factors. The follow-up to a blank check guarantor
is always exciting.
With his follow-up, Dashcam, Rob Savage partnered up
with Blumhouse to dig back into the “found footage” end of the genre, and,
quite frankly, it’s easy to see why he would. His technical prowess in
delivering some shocking visuals and moments within the confines of the style
is impressively bombastic with this film. If anything, Dashcam knows
that it doesn’t want to deviate too far from the style that worked in Host,
but it also wants to expand on it in some immense ways. The combination, while
occasionally at odds with one another, provides one of the more fascinating
horror experiences of the year.
When Annie Hardy (played by…Annie Hardy?) heads over to
London to visit her friend Stretch after being in lockdown during the COVID-19
pandemic she finds that her abrasive and childish personality is at odds with
the world around her. With a little internet fame for live streaming an
improvised music show, she never puts down the camera. When she steals her
friend’s car in a tantrum and picks up a frail old woman (Angela Enahoro) to
take her across town, she unwittingly stumbles into a night filled with
horror.
Like the comparisons to Host from above, one of the
key aspects to Dashcam is that audiences should go into the film for the
experience rather than the plot or characters. The introduction of its
characters and the first half of character and plot development can be a bit of
a chore to make it through. The film, in establishing a world where the
characters exist, knows that for its finale to work it needs to establish a
realism before launching into full horror mode. Granted, while the pandemic and
its lead character Annie Hardy are technically real - including Annie’s Band
Car streaming service outside of the film, there is a bit of a disconnect to
make it work smoothly.
This disconnect is directly tied to the choices for its lead
character - an extreme right-wing American woman who never hesitates to feed
into Qanon propaganda with her abrasive, irritating, and offensive personality.
This choice makes running through the plot a bit of a challenge. Not that every
film should have likable protagonists, but this film challenges its viewers
almost immediately to try and care for her.
Fortunately, her friend Stretch, played by Amar
Chadha-Patel, serves as an audience surrogate when he pops up to ask the
hard-hitting questions like “what the fuck are you doing?” and “what the fuck
is going on right now?” Questions that are often echoed by the audience…in some
great ways considering where the film goes for its latter half.
Although the film takes quite a bit of time setting up its
story elements, it’s setting the stage for a second half that utterly pushes the
limits of found footage in some surprisingly fun and outlandish ways. With its
smaller budget, Dashcam still manages to bolster some impressive scare
sequences with impressive effects and technical prowess that awes throughout
many of its key moments which often run parallel to other great found footage
horror like the cult segment from V/H/S/2 or how the film uses its point
of view to deceive its audience ala the [REC] series.
Although to give too much away would spoil the fun of
experiencing it, Savage and team are up for the challenge. You’ve never seen
this many car wrecks in a found footage flick (or the horrific aftermath that
keeps happening each time) and its use of Abigail as its antagonist often
defies expectations and the smooth transitions for its effects - including a
few incredibly effective jump scares and a handful of under-the-skin creepy
moments. Once Dashcam starts moving, it’s an avalanche of handheld
footage horror, picking up speed to devastate its audience and pummel its
characters in a cascade of insanity.
While Dashcam may not have the efficient and
minimalist horror brilliance of Savage’s first film, it’s a relatively
fascinating beast unto itself. After its plodding first set up and challenging
characters are established, it does effectively become one of the most
effective horror films of the year and manages to impress and surprise in ways
I did not expect to be hit with in a found footage horror experience. Dashcam
might be wholly uneven, but its heights are insanely high and it has no problem
with forcing its audience to experience them in full.
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