Dashcam Review: Found Footage Horror Movie Ruins Interesting Premise
In the twenty-first century, found footage is ready for reinvention, but horror film Dashcam undermines a strong premise with an unlikable protagonist and formulaic scares that do nothing to support its baffling conclusion. Thanks to the 1999 horror blockbuster The Blair Witch Project, found footage has long been a hallmark of the horror genre. In the early 2000s, there was a flood of found footage films attempting to cash in on Blair Witch's fame.
However, what was once a unique feature of the genre has since become a tired gimmick for cheap scares. Host, a horror film produced in 2020, appeared to resuscitate the genre by making a gripping horror film that was ideal for the epidemic times in which it was released. Now, the same creative team behind that film has returned with another pandemic-set found footage horror film, Dashcam, but it falls short of its predecessor.
Dashcam introduces heroine Annie during a livestream for her programme BandCar, which bills itself as "The Internet's #1 Live Improvised music Show Broadcast from a Moving Vehicle." Annie offers her thoughts on the status of the world at the start of the pandemic, making buzzy edgelord-style comments about the government's mask laws and quarantine lockdowns. Annie eventually decides to relocate to the united kingdom from Los Angeles. Annie eventually arrives to her friend Stretch's house, wearing a MAGA hat as she travels around the world. Annie doesn't like the limits in the UK or Stretch's liberal views, so she steals his car and starts a live stream, which swiftly devolves into uncontrollable mayhem when she picks up an unexpected passenger.
Annie's unlikability as a protagonist will grate on the nerves of viewers, who will find her sense of comedy virtually unpleasant. While Hardy gives a competent and even amusing portrayal, the plot of Dashcam does not justify her right-wing views, making her character even more perplexing. Annie's political convictions serve no function other than to elicit a scream from the viewer, which is exactly what horror is supposed to achieve. Some of the most disturbing moments will undoubtedly make jump scare-prone viewers jump, but Dashcam doesn't provide much else in the way of originality in the discovered footage genre.
While Dashcam had the potential to elevate the found footage genre (particularly given the early months of the pandemic's ubiquity of instagram Lives), it swiftly loses sight of whatever nuanced commentary it could've produced. Instead, viewers are left with a perplexing mosaic of jump scares, one-note characters, and schlocky gore that will undoubtedly disturb but will have little lasting impact beyond its brief runtime.
However, what was once a unique feature of the genre has since become a tired gimmick for cheap scares. Host, a horror film produced in 2020, appeared to resuscitate the genre by making a gripping horror film that was ideal for the epidemic times in which it was released. Now, the same creative team behind that film has returned with another pandemic-set found footage horror film, Dashcam, but it falls short of its predecessor.
Dashcam introduces heroine Annie during a livestream for her programme BandCar, which bills itself as "The Internet's #1 Live Improvised music Show Broadcast from a Moving Vehicle." Annie offers her thoughts on the status of the world at the start of the pandemic, making buzzy edgelord-style comments about the government's mask laws and quarantine lockdowns. Annie eventually decides to relocate to the united kingdom from Los Angeles. Annie eventually arrives to her friend Stretch's house, wearing a MAGA hat as she travels around the world. Annie doesn't like the limits in the UK or Stretch's liberal views, so she steals his car and starts a live stream, which swiftly devolves into uncontrollable mayhem when she picks up an unexpected passenger.
Annie's unlikability as a protagonist will grate on the nerves of viewers, who will find her sense of comedy virtually unpleasant. While Hardy gives a competent and even amusing portrayal, the plot of Dashcam does not justify her right-wing views, making her character even more perplexing. Annie's political convictions serve no function other than to elicit a scream from the viewer, which is exactly what horror is supposed to achieve. Some of the most disturbing moments will undoubtedly make jump scare-prone viewers jump, but Dashcam doesn't provide much else in the way of originality in the discovered footage genre.
While Dashcam had the potential to elevate the found footage genre (particularly given the early months of the pandemic's ubiquity of instagram Lives), it swiftly loses sight of whatever nuanced commentary it could've produced. Instead, viewers are left with a perplexing mosaic of jump scares, one-note characters, and schlocky gore that will undoubtedly disturb but will have little lasting impact beyond its brief runtime.