There is no point in me trying to act coy here. I hated Dashcam. Absolutely hated it. And I hated it all the more due to the fact that the main creative people involved, director Rob Savage and co., gave us one of the best horror movies that made innovative use of the global pandemic restrictions, Host.
Dashcam is, despite the title, a mix of dashcam footage and footage filmed through a couple of different phones. I guess “Whateverisclosesttohandcam” was judged to be far too wieldy a title. It shows Annie Hardy, playing Annie Hardy, having a very rough evening, and there is fun to be had, I think, from seeing bad things happen to a bad person (Hardy is an obnoxiously aggressive anti-vaxxer, anti-masker, MAGA-hat-wearing type). That is the aim anyway. I didn’t have fun. At all. I spent the runtime of the movie stuck with someone I hated, having her tiresome presence punctuated by tiresome jump scares and a LOT of awful camerawork (because it is “found footage” so it doesn’t matter that you cannot make out what is going on . . . obviously).
Look, from what I have heard recently, there are people who believe that Hardy is playing someone onscreen not a million miles removed from her real persona. I am willing to consider that she may have spent the past year or so performing an extended piece of Kaufman-esque performance art though. Unfortunately, any other aspect of her character fails to make up for the overwhelming unpleasantness. It is mind-boggling to think of anyone putting up with her crap (co-star Amar Chadha-Patel is an absolute saint at times) and she doesn’t even convince as a talented musician, considering she is preoccupied with creating rhymes that revolve around variations of the words “penis” and “ass”. Hardy, onscreen anyway, is a foot-stamping child. Movie characters do not have to be likeable, but having even one small saving grace, be it humour, skill, or a bit of charm, can really help make a movie much easier to endure.
And this is an endurance test. From the horrible camerawork throughout to the “amusing” rants and lyrics delivered by Hardy, from the nonsensical set up of everything to a set-piece that creates tension from someone, ummmm, feeling the need to rescue a small keyboard that then makes a loud noise at an inconvenient time. Almost every minute of Dashcam is excruciating, and nothing on the shocks and scares front does enough to outweigh the multitude of negatives.
You could be forgiven for thinking that Savage, alongside Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd, who showed such inventiveness and skill in their previous feature, has been replaced by some talentless clone behind the camera here. Where there was once an ability to create real tension and entertainment there now just seems to be a void, both technically and artistically.
There’s no reason to think that those involved didn’t realise what they were doing. There is little middle ground here, Savage has served up something that viewers will either love or hate. I hated it, thanks, and I doubt I will see a worse studio film this year.
2/10
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