DASHCAM
(director/writer: Rob Savage; screenwriters: Gemma Hurley, Jed Shepherd; Camera: Ollie Craig; cinematographer: Ollie Craig; editor: Brenna Rangott; cast: Annie Hardy (Annie), Amar Chadha-Patel (El Stretcho), Angela Enahoro (Angela), Faith Kiggunda (Young Angela), Emma Louise Webb (Flight Attendant); Runtime: 117; MPAA Rating: NR; producers; Jason Blum, Douglas Cox, Rob Savage: Shadowhouse Films/Blumhouse; 2021-UK/USA)
“Made me car sick.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A grating and self-indulging horror pic (made me car sick). The shallow film over a haunted Zoom call-that has the actors playing themselves, portends to be a horror pic but is only a black comedy hiding behind a vanity project that should have never been made. It’s co-written and directed by the tasteless Rob Savage(“Host”/”Strings”). The co-writers Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd mistakenly have the lead character, Annie Hardy, a real-life L.A, musician with the band Giant Drag., act out in a cartoon-like way by playing herself as an evil person.
It’s filmed against the backdrop of COVID. The star is the MC who hosts BandCar, “the Internet’s #1 Live Improvised Music Show Broadcast from a Moving Vehicle.”
At COVID’s onset, Annie abandons L.A. for London, going there to meet up again with former band-member Stretch (Amar Chadha-Patel) working there as a delivery driver. Annie is obnoxious, and ticks off everyone she meets–eventually even Stretch.
The film’s lowlight (there were no highlights) has Annie steal Stretch’s car and ride around maskless. At an empty restaurant that called for Stretch, she’s asked by the nervous owner to deliver an old Black woman named Angela (Angela Enahoro) to another location.
Annie is a sociopath who thinks COVID-19 is a hoax, wears a MAGA hat, and irritates everyone (including the viewers). If this is supposed to be funny, I don’t get the joke.
It was shot from Annie’s cell phone, and meant to be a found footage “Blair Witch Project” horror film.
Of note, the film was scripted, shot, and released within a 12-week period near the start of the pandemic. Why it was made is not explained, perhaps because it can’t be. But there’s probably an audience for it, such as the Midnight Madness crowd who might trip out on it if on hallucinogenics.
REVIEWED ON 9/15/2021 GRADE: D