Dashcam Review: Found Footage Horror Movie Ruins Interesting Premise
Found footage is ripe for reinvention in the 21st century, but horror movie Dashcam undermines a solid premise with an unlikable protagonist and predictable scares that do little to prop up its inexplicable ending. Found footage has long been a staple of the horror genre thanks to 1999 horror classic The Blair Witch Project. The early aughts saw an onslaught of found footage movies looking to capitalize on Blair Witch's success. But what was once a novelty of the genre has become an overused trope for cheap scares. 2020 movie Host seemed to revive the genre, crafting a taut horror movie perfect for the pandemic times in which it was released. Now, the creative team behind that movie is back with another pandemic-set found footage horror movie, but Dashcam fails to capture the same magic as its predecessor.
Dashcam introduces protagonist Annie (Annie Hardy) in the midst of a livestream for her show BandCar, "The Internet's #1 Live Improvised Music Show Broadcast from a Moving Vehicle." Annie opines about the state of the world at the onset of the pandemic, throwing around buzzy edgelord-esque quips about the government's mask mandates and quarantine lockdowns. Soon enough, Annie decides to leave Los Angeles for the UK (seemingly unaware that restrictions in Europe at that time were much stricter than those in the United States). Sporting a MAGA hat as she makes her way across the globe, Annie eventually arrives at her friend Stretch's (Amer Chadha-Patel) house. Annie doesn't take well to the UK's restrictions or Stretch's liberal leanings, stealing his car and beginning a live stream that quickly devolves into uncontrolled mayhem when she takes on an unexpected passenger.
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