An entertaining live stream during the pandemic takes a turn for the worse when the host unwillingly gets involved with shadowy people and dark entities.
Dumb, laughable, nonsensical… everything a horror film shouldn’t be! In a nutshell, this is how this horror sub-genre came to be: found footage, webcam, dashcam. Needless to say which category Dashcam falls under… Let’s start with the basics: Annie Hardy – the character, not the person – is the biggest douche you’ve ever encountered in a film, and you won’t show any sympathy for her. Stretch, on the other hand, is somewhat indifferent. Director Rob Savage did a horrible job with the camera. I presume the editor, Brenna Rangott, spent most of the time piecing together badly shot, shaky, incoherent footage. Last, but not least, we, the audience, spent all of our time, the whole 67′, wondering what the hell was going on – or 75′ if you stayed till the very end to watch Hardy freestyling with the end credits’ names.
You’ll get annoyed and disappointed if you consider Dashcam a found-footage horror. If you see it as a parody of the sub-genre, though, with a funny leading actress, you’ll have a decent laugh. Jason Blum has produced some of the best horrors of the 21st century, so he’s allowed to have a misfire every now and then. My issues are with the particular film and not Blum or his company. But, speaking of laughter, the best part of the film is the side comments; they range from amusing to hilarious. I truly believe that if something similar happened in real life, the comments would literally be that. Now, from a filmmaking point of view, that is horrible because terms such as mise-en-scène (what’s included in the frame) fly out of the window. The audience’s attention is focused on the side of the screen when the action takes place elsewhere. It’s like focusing on reactions while unaware of what they are for. From a societal point of view, it is worse than horrible because it showcases that a fellow human’s dire need for help becomes the people’s entertainment and amusement. The evident collapse of humanity becomes, then, the real horror.
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Solidarity for all the innocent lives who suffer the atrocities of war!
Stay safe!
