Dashcam
Year: 2022
Director: Rob Savage
Starring: Amar Chadha-Patel, Angela Enahoro & Annie Hardy
Runtime: 76 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 20/03/24
Director: Rob Savage
Starring: Amar Chadha-Patel, Angela Enahoro & Annie Hardy
Runtime: 76 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 20/03/24
2020’s Host was one of those rare films that made me completely brown my trousers. It had basically no budget and was restricted by the limitations of the COVID-19 lockdowns. So, performing a seance over Zoom and exclusively presenting the film from the perspective of a computer screen was a great way around that limitation.
It was shortly after I watched it that I became aware of director Rob Savage’s 2021 follow up feature, Dashcam. Similar in presentation and also set during lockdown I had high hopes, but due to some frustrating creative choices Dashcam can’t hold a candle to its predecessor.
Musician, internet personality, and Trump supporting conspiracy nut Annie (Annie Hardy) refuses to believe COVID actually exists and in a desperate attempt to break the monotony of life in Los Angeles she books a flight to England to see a former band mate, Stretch (Amar Chadha-Patel).
Whilst helping him with his food delivery job Annie offers a ride to an elderly lady, Angela (Angela Enahoro). But when Angela begins to act strangely and they become pursued by dangerous individuals who are after her, Annie and Stretch’s night turns into a fight for survival.
I think the must frustrating thing about Dashcam is that even though the film does so much right, its lead character is its Achilles Heel that brings the entire house of cards tumbling down. Annie is actually insufferable, and whilst I understand that she is supposed to be grating to anyone with a brain, she’s unlikable to such a degree that anytime I found myself starting to get into the film and enjoy it she’d open her mouth and drag me right out of the experience. I couldn’t always tell if it was bad writing, or if Annie was intentionally dumb and antagonistic because she’s a right-wing conspiracy nut. So much so that I’m not sure if the film is bad, or a parody.
It’s one thing to have a character be so overtly right wing to the point that they wear ‘Make America Great Again’ hats unironically and believe that COVID is a way to just control the population and turn you into slaves to the system; but Annie actively goes out of her way to antagonise and insult every single person she meets. Despite Stretch being her supposed friend she ‘greets’ him by sneaking into his house in the middle of the night and punching him in the face whilst he’s asleep. She also berates his girlfriend to her face on multiple occasions completely unprovoked. She seems outrageously disconnected from reality to the point that she never has what I would consider a realistic reaction to what’s happening around her. When being pursued by people (or things) that want to cause her harm she’s stringing together ridiculously complicated obscenities about sucking dick and eating ass. She also takes any opportunity she can to improvise a new song, so like she’s just seen someone get their head ripped off for example and once she’s escaped her pursuer, she’ll start rapping about absolute nonsense. This woman is unhinged and whilst it is an unfortunately accurate depiction of how many right-wing extremists behave, particularly American’s, I spent the entire film just hoping, wishing that she was going to be killed off because I couldn’t stand to see her live for one moment more.
It was shortly after I watched it that I became aware of director Rob Savage’s 2021 follow up feature, Dashcam. Similar in presentation and also set during lockdown I had high hopes, but due to some frustrating creative choices Dashcam can’t hold a candle to its predecessor.
Musician, internet personality, and Trump supporting conspiracy nut Annie (Annie Hardy) refuses to believe COVID actually exists and in a desperate attempt to break the monotony of life in Los Angeles she books a flight to England to see a former band mate, Stretch (Amar Chadha-Patel).
Whilst helping him with his food delivery job Annie offers a ride to an elderly lady, Angela (Angela Enahoro). But when Angela begins to act strangely and they become pursued by dangerous individuals who are after her, Annie and Stretch’s night turns into a fight for survival.
I think the must frustrating thing about Dashcam is that even though the film does so much right, its lead character is its Achilles Heel that brings the entire house of cards tumbling down. Annie is actually insufferable, and whilst I understand that she is supposed to be grating to anyone with a brain, she’s unlikable to such a degree that anytime I found myself starting to get into the film and enjoy it she’d open her mouth and drag me right out of the experience. I couldn’t always tell if it was bad writing, or if Annie was intentionally dumb and antagonistic because she’s a right-wing conspiracy nut. So much so that I’m not sure if the film is bad, or a parody.
It’s one thing to have a character be so overtly right wing to the point that they wear ‘Make America Great Again’ hats unironically and believe that COVID is a way to just control the population and turn you into slaves to the system; but Annie actively goes out of her way to antagonise and insult every single person she meets. Despite Stretch being her supposed friend she ‘greets’ him by sneaking into his house in the middle of the night and punching him in the face whilst he’s asleep. She also berates his girlfriend to her face on multiple occasions completely unprovoked. She seems outrageously disconnected from reality to the point that she never has what I would consider a realistic reaction to what’s happening around her. When being pursued by people (or things) that want to cause her harm she’s stringing together ridiculously complicated obscenities about sucking dick and eating ass. She also takes any opportunity she can to improvise a new song, so like she’s just seen someone get their head ripped off for example and once she’s escaped her pursuer, she’ll start rapping about absolute nonsense. This woman is unhinged and whilst it is an unfortunately accurate depiction of how many right-wing extremists behave, particularly American’s, I spent the entire film just hoping, wishing that she was going to be killed off because I couldn’t stand to see her live for one moment more.
Aside from Annie, Dashcam is an ok found footage movie. The way it incorporates the ‘screen life’ perspective is that we as the viewer are an audience member in Annie’s livestream from her phone. The film is unfortunately often presented in a portrait viewing mode, meaning only the middle third of the screen has any content on it for a lot of the film, it does occasionally switch to a landscape view mode but it’s rare. The bottom left corner of the screen often has a chatroom style message feed cycling through, though most of what’s said in this feed is useless spamming (like any real comments section).
The pace works well, and like Host it doesn’t hang around that long clocking in at seventy-six minutes (just over an hour minus the credits song which is Annie incorporating most of the crew’s names into a beat where she’s mostly just spouting obscenities). It doesn’t take long for things to start getting weird and once that happens it’s a full-blown sprint to the finish packed with chase sequences, jump scares galore, and plenty of gory violence.
I must admit I’m not entirely sure why people were after Angela, or even what was going on with her. I did like that element of mystery but there were some moments that were so weird that I just felt kind of confused as to what’s happening. Annie and Stretch are casualties of happenstance, getting wrapped up in something that’s way beyond them. It can feel like we’re being presented a side story that ends up colliding with the main plot of the film because of how rapidly shit hits the fan and how little information we have to go on.
I must admit that Dashcam did hit a little sweet spot for me in that it was filmed locally to where I grew up. Margate seems to be on a bit of a streak with film & TV productions recently, most notably Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light in 2022 and the Netflix revival of Top Boy, but Dashcam is probably the only film that showcases the area in an accurate way, a really terrifying place to be.
I do of course say that in jest, but you wouldn’t know it from various portrayals in the media recently, but Margate is horrendously run down and Dashcam uses that to its advantage. It even uses the Dreamland amusement park as a derelict and abandoned theme park late in the film, and it wasn’t all that long ago that Dreamland was derelict and abandoned so it definitely brings back childhood memories of this inherently creepy landmark I’d see regularly.
Had it not been for one of the most awful lead characters I’ve ever seen on film, Dashcam could have been a good time, even though it doesn’t quite match up to Host’s extremely high standards. It’s a frantic whirlwind of panic that rarely lets up and I can’t deny that it definitely entertained me. But whenever Annie opened her mouth, it made me want to turn the film off. I really hated her, and perhaps that’s the point, but I hated her so much that I honestly can’t see myself ever watching the film again or really being able to recommend it to people. Some may be able to deal with it better than I did, but as it stands for me, Dashcam is a solid found footage horror squandered by its unflinching commitment to having its lead character be as insufferable as possible.
The pace works well, and like Host it doesn’t hang around that long clocking in at seventy-six minutes (just over an hour minus the credits song which is Annie incorporating most of the crew’s names into a beat where she’s mostly just spouting obscenities). It doesn’t take long for things to start getting weird and once that happens it’s a full-blown sprint to the finish packed with chase sequences, jump scares galore, and plenty of gory violence.
I must admit I’m not entirely sure why people were after Angela, or even what was going on with her. I did like that element of mystery but there were some moments that were so weird that I just felt kind of confused as to what’s happening. Annie and Stretch are casualties of happenstance, getting wrapped up in something that’s way beyond them. It can feel like we’re being presented a side story that ends up colliding with the main plot of the film because of how rapidly shit hits the fan and how little information we have to go on.
I must admit that Dashcam did hit a little sweet spot for me in that it was filmed locally to where I grew up. Margate seems to be on a bit of a streak with film & TV productions recently, most notably Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light in 2022 and the Netflix revival of Top Boy, but Dashcam is probably the only film that showcases the area in an accurate way, a really terrifying place to be.
I do of course say that in jest, but you wouldn’t know it from various portrayals in the media recently, but Margate is horrendously run down and Dashcam uses that to its advantage. It even uses the Dreamland amusement park as a derelict and abandoned theme park late in the film, and it wasn’t all that long ago that Dreamland was derelict and abandoned so it definitely brings back childhood memories of this inherently creepy landmark I’d see regularly.
Had it not been for one of the most awful lead characters I’ve ever seen on film, Dashcam could have been a good time, even though it doesn’t quite match up to Host’s extremely high standards. It’s a frantic whirlwind of panic that rarely lets up and I can’t deny that it definitely entertained me. But whenever Annie opened her mouth, it made me want to turn the film off. I really hated her, and perhaps that’s the point, but I hated her so much that I honestly can’t see myself ever watching the film again or really being able to recommend it to people. Some may be able to deal with it better than I did, but as it stands for me, Dashcam is a solid found footage horror squandered by its unflinching commitment to having its lead character be as insufferable as possible.