Saturday, October 10, 2020

Cam (2018)

IMDb plot summary: Alice, an ambitious camgirl, wakes up one day to discover she's been replaced on her show with an exact replica of herself.
Directed by Daniel Goldhaber. Starring Madeline Brewer, Patch Darragh, Melora Walters, and Devin Druid.

Cam is a 2018 Netflix movie about Alice, a camgirl who performs under the pseudonym "Lola." One day, she discovers some other person who looks exactly like her has stolen her account and is doing shows pretending to be her, and no one believes it isn't her. It's a weird creepy story that may very well have some logical loopholes, but ultimately I didn't care because this is one of the most engaging movies I've seen in a long time. I attribute that to a combination of the writing and the acting. Screenwriter Isa Mazzei did work as a camgirl -- the scene where Alice goes to the police for help only to have them ask her with a sleazy grin, "So what's the weirdest thing you ever did on camera?" is apparently taken pretty directly from Mazzei's experience. It's a world I know very little about, but I can *feel* the authenticity in the writing. And Madeline Brewer as Alice is tremendously compelling -- a smart, independent woman who feels like her whole life is inexplicably unraveling. The ending is, again, perhaps logically confusing, but for once I didn't care because it was riveting to watch. Definitely a gem of a horror flick -- check it out!

How it entered my Flickchart:
Cam > Downfall
Cam > Queen of Katwe
Cam < Leap of Faith
Cam > The Muppets
Cam > Cloud Atlas
Cam > Walking and Talking
Cam > Grease
Cam < Castle in the Sky
Cam > Chariots of Fire
Cam < Secretary
Cam < The Legend of 1900
Cam > Network
Final spot: #421 out of 3233, or 87%.

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