Dashcam

Annie Hardy is fed up of the COVID restrictions in The States, so she travels to spend time with her old college friend, Stretch. After falling out with Stretch, Annie pinches Stretch's car, and picks up a sick woman named Angela.

This was like stepping back in time about twenty years or so, when all manner of Blair Witch rip offs came out, it almost gave me a sense of nostalgia.

The film itself, may have been better if Annie had been done away with my Angela as soon as she stepped into the car, a shame all she did was mess herself.

The aforementioned mess is the exact word I'd use for this film, it's shockingly bad, I can see they'd aimed for a sort of comedy horror, but it just failed, largely because Annie was such an obnoxious idiot, hopefully she's a lot calmer in real life.

I just renewed my Sky subscription, and this was the first movie I watched, heaven help us.

Too irritating for words.

3/10.

The main female lead is so obnoxious, so selfish, so oblivious to anything else, so self-absorbed, and so damn American, that I wanted her to die in the first five minutes. This is why the world hates us. She also seemed to take to the role a little too easily. Is she like this in real life?

Let's start with the good: the special effects are really impressive.

The bad: literally everything else. This was EXCRUCIATING to get through due to the horrifically annoying main character. My god, what a terrible character. Also, I know you have to suspend belief especially in found footage horror, but there's absolutely no way her devices would have kept working, let alone stay open in the same app, after being smashed, dropped, thrown, and submerged in water.

Is Annie Hardy like her character in the movie? If so, dearie me. One of the most repulsive characters i've witnessed, Dashcam is woeful and has no redeeming features whatsoever. Avoid at all costs.

From the director of Host comes a new found-footage horror once again set in the midst of the ongoing pandemic but this time is unable to duplicate the freshness & ingenuity of his previous outing. Dashcam conjures a few effective scares and is able to sustain its intensity once things escalate but the film as a whole is also consistently undermined by its insufferable protagonist.

Directed by Rob Savage, the problem with his latest feature is that it provides zero incentive to why any of us should care about what happens to the vile & vexatious mouthpiece it puts at its centre, plus her actions only has us wishing for the worst. It is a deliberate choice no doubt but not one that's thought through coz more could've been achieved with a character worth giving a damn about.

While the dramatic portions are weak, the film delivers on the horror front and features several chilling & unsettling moments with its clever setups & savage thrills. Once again, the jump scares are well-executed, plus there's ample gore in store. It also has a visceral, nightmarish quality yet lacks the immersive element to make it count. Lastly, Annie Hardy plays her own fictional version and easily gets on everyone's nerves.

Overall, Dashcam unleashes an unrelenting assault on the senses in both good & bad ways but the film's scare factor is also severely diminished by the problematic main character who remains an annoying, repulsive & grating presence at all times. Still, Savage's latest film isn't without its merits and even manages to be occasionally tense, thrilling & unsettling once things begin to go haywire. A missed opportunity of sorts but worth a shot anyway.