Dashcam

source: Dashcam

Dashcam: A sort of found footage film which is filmed entirely on an iPhone. Annie (Annie Hardy) is a musician who is fed up with LA so breaks quarantine and flies to London. She has a livestream show where she comments and plays music while driving around but keeps things live on her journey to England. She arrives at an old bandmate's home and turns Stretch's (Amer Chadha-Patel) life upside down because Annie is truly unhinged. Her character may grate on you at first but the sheer lunacy of her actions will endear her to you eventually (I reckon). After alienating Stretch and his partner she flees in his car and is inveigled into giving a sick old woman, Angela, a lift to the outskirts of London. A gorefest develops, most of which is streamed live except when the signal is lost. The viewers sidebar comments s are a howl but pay close attention to them as one post might well provide an explanation as to what is really going on. Not everyone will like this film and there are many disturbing scenes so of you are squeamish or easily shocked then best to avoid Dashcam. This is one weird Covid horror film. Directed & Co-Written by Rob Savage. 8/10.

There's no explanation as to what is actually going on. This annoying Woman leaves the US during Covid to escape the lockdown, and heads to the UK, where we were still locked down, so that aspect of the 'story' makes no sense. So then she annoys her friend and his girlfriend, steals his car, ends up being paid to take this Woman to a friends, and then the film really starts making no sense. It transpires this Woman has some kind of 'super powers', great strength, able to levitate, able to instil absolutely no fear in the viewer. Most of what happens is impossible to make out, since of course we're seeing everything via the camera, and this is one of the major flaws of these 'found footage' films. We're then meant to believe that the character(s) have the same view of the World as we have through their camera(s), this of course is complete nonsense to anyone with any sense, or anyone who has used a smartphone . There's one scene in particular which highlights this all too obvious flaw. Our overly annoying heroine and her friend are standing face to face in a theme park, we're seeing the scene from his perspective(well, his cameras perspective), she rips the camera out of his hand, turns it to face him, and we're hit with one of the many attempts at a 'jump scare', as the 'possessed' Woman is standing right next to the friend... Now, how could this annoying character not see this women without the aid of the camera?? These events happen all too often in these found footage films, and i think, for me, that's one of the worst aspects of them. People simply don't act, or react normally in these films, so why bother making them?? Just make a standard film. You also always get those scenes where they're fleeing for their very lives, they trip, their camera spills out of their hand, landing several feet away in heavy undergrowth, the 'bad guy' is right on their tail. What do they then do? Do they, get up ASAP, and run for their lives? No, they get up, and rummage around looking for their camera, just to ensure they get their grizzly death caught on shaky, blurry footage. This film almost goes that stage further. The 'annoying one' has her phone in a clip, attached to her cap. Incredibly, she never, throughout all the panic, clambering through trees, and pipe, almost drowning in a sinking car, loses her phone, the clip, or her cap. It really is remarkable. Another fail in this film is a characters inability to drive a car further than 100 yards before careering off the road, and hitting the only tree/pylon around. Three cars were wrecked by this Woman in the last 20 minutes of the film. Just drive!!! Found footage films should be done away with, we're even being drowned in 'laptop' found footage films. You have to be very skilled at film making to make a good one. By far the best first person/found footage film i've seen, was the original 'Rec'. That's how these films should be made, not like this one. This one is a mess. There's no storyline as such, there's absolutely no explanation as to what this 'parasite' was, where it came from. I get the impression we're meant to take it as a metaphor for Covid, that's my best guess. I can only suggest avoiding this film, sadly. It is truly awful.

While Rob Savage managed to deliver a spooky zoom horror film with Host - his second feature unfortunately does not deliver as much. A big part of that is the fact that the protagonist is utterly horrible to watch. Considering the fact that the actress is not so different to the character she plays, it's not really fun watching her on screen. If the film had been able to elevate this through a great and engaging script, it might have saved this film, but sadly it didn't - so it doesn't.

I'm a fan of Giant Drag and Annie Hardy, the band's lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter. She's known for the explicit lyrics in her songs and battling hecklers on stage, which really ties into how she acts in Dashcam, a movie that has her on-screen and livestreaming for most of the movie. As she deals with the coronavirus pandemic, she's been riding around downtown Los Angeles and singing and rapping on her stream. She decides to go to London to visit her old bandmate Stretch and instantly enrages his girlfriend and makes his food delivery job a nightmare. Then she steals his car and phone. That's when she meets Angela, an old woman followed by someone trying to kill her who offers plenty of money to get her out of town. That's when things go wrong. Directed by Rob Savage (Host), who co-wrote the script with Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd (who wrote Host), this is based on Hardy's real life, as Band Car was a show that she did where she improvised songs while she drove based on what those in the chat room sent. So while I'm a fan of Hardy's music, I am not a fan of her in this movie, which finds her playing a MAGA anti-vaxxer in the broadest way possible when she isn't freestyle rapping about shoving things into orifices. It feels either too easy or - if earnest - too insipid and too uninspired - the simplest form of shock comedy that has nuance in a burst and is absolutely and utterly grating at 77 minutes ending with a cute idea of her rapping the credits making this feel like it will never end. I'm worried that I'm going to wake up in a Jacob's Ladder situation and it'll still be halfway done. I will never get the idea of doing found footage or streaming movies in the place of a traditional narrative but I lost that battle long ago.

This was one of the most all-out fun films I've seen in a while. It pulls off the neat trick of being both scary and hilarious. The central character, Annie, is an obnoxious - yet somehow loveable - vlogger and the film is shown from the perspective of her livestreaming camera, together with the comments of her audience. An anti-masker conspiracy theorist, she escapes the 'oppression' of Los Angeles during the pandemic and travels to London to stay with an old friend, 'Stretch', and his girlfriend. Within hours, she steals his car during an argument, gives a lift to a frail little old black woman, and from thereon in all hell breaks loose. This little old woman turns out to be not at all what she seems. That's as much as I want to say. There is a coherent story underlying events, but the story barely really matters; this film is essentially a thrill ride and it's best to just sit back and enjoy it.

This was THE BEST movie I have seen all year. NO JOKE. I have not laughed this much in years. And its a horror...my favorite genre. This was the BEST horror movie I have seen in a few years, and if you look at my other ratings, you'll see Ive rated a ton of horror movies. I HIGHLY recommend checking this out ASAP! 10/10 AWESOME comedy horror!

I want my $6 back. I don't know what was worse ...the lack of an actual story or Annie Hardy's puke mouth rapping. The only I don't blame is the sweet white kitty she abandoned in the states. That poor little thing dodged a bullet.

Okay so where do i start. This has to be the worst found footage horror movie ive ever seen. The main actress i dont think ive ever wanted to punch a character so much in my life. Her rapping is atrocious i mean to the point you wanna tear your ears off. Her character is annoying and just messed up dont think ive ever seen anyone like this before. The horror scares? Couldn't bloody see anything cause all it was just shaky shaky cam all over the place. Skip it trust me you aint missing anything.

Not scary. Not funny. Motion sickness will occur. Worst filming and acting. I feel cheated. Don't waste your time. Please. WTF did we just watch???! The lead actress is utter trash. WTF?!?