WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD
Exploring the world of online web cam girls and the repercussions of doing anything to be famous, Netflix’s new film,
Cam, is not only a tense and creepy ride from start to finish, but also one of the best films to come from Blumhouse.
It follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), an extremely ambitious cam-girl who’s determined to be amongst the top streamers on a site and goes to extreme methods to do so. She’ll basically do whatever her viewers want—even “kill herself” on camera just so viewers will give her some money. However, Alice’s climb to the top of the fame ladder takes a horrifying turn when her channel is hijacked by someone that creepily looks exactly like her.
Cam is incredibly vibrant from the start and really utilizes the fun and sleek sets that Alice has. Even the different outfits and themes that Alice marks off on her calendar, in order to never have repeats, really plays into her attitude as a struggling artist. This kind of personality has been touched on before in films like Whiplash and Black Swan, but Cam brings it to a whole other level.
With Cam, viewers can actually see more of the repercussion of her profession and how it affects her personal relationships. There are actually a lot of moments that effectively delve into themes of slut-shaming, how people view porn stars, and daily issues they can fix that ultimately give Alice much more depth as a character. Seeing her have to deal with on of her followers, Barney, at a restaurant or seeing how she reacts to seeing another follower, Tinker, in her town will makes viewers understand why she has rules for herself as a streamer and why it’s so important that she breaks them.
Now, what would be a film about cam-girls be without an excellent performance and, thankfully, Brewer makes Alice impossible not to be interested in. Like a great cam-girl, Brewer teases viewers with small elements of Alice’s personality to get us instantly hooked and unable to look away. Then, suddenly, something changes with her performance that will surprise viewers and make them completely fixated with what’s happening on-screen. The opening is a great example of this as Alice seems like she is playing the role of a typical cam girl, but then pulls out a knife and slits her throat for the enjoyment of her viewers.
The film’s greatest strength, though, is that it is actually creepy and tense on so many levels. From the perverts that gawk and are obsessed with Alice both online and in real-life to Alice having to watch someone that looks just like her commit acts that she’s done before on camera, Cam brings plenty of horror that feels grippingly realistic.
The only struggles that keep the film from being fresh horror perfection basically comes from a phrase I literally said out loud at one point in the film. There comes a turning point where Alice finally succumbs to something seemingly out of character that showcases her desire for fame and I suddenly blurted out: “Oh my god! This is Perfect Blue.”
Now, for those unaware of what Perfect Blue is, it is a 1997 anime thriller about a girl named Mima, who was originally part of an all-girl pop group but decides to leave in order to start her own career as an actress. However, she struggles in the beginning and decides to do more adult photo shoots and stray away from her typically squeaky clean image. After that, she is haunted by an image of her former self through seeing her in reflections and through blog posts that pretend to be her. Once she tries to figure this out, she confronts a stalker who she believes could be behind it, but then ultimately finds out the truth.
It’s highly regarded as one of the best psychological thrillers of all time and inspired a lot of recreations (many even say that director Darren Aronofsky was clearly inspired by it to create Black Swan).
Now, this is an important comparison as, for most of the film, Alice deals with similar issues of fighting an image of her former self after going outside of her rules. She is haunted by the image as it taunts her by hijacking her live feed and posting to her viewers on her stream. She thus tries to figure out what is happening and confronts a man who was beginning to stalk her to learn the truth.
Now, the problem isn’t that both films feel similar—they both still lead to a highly entertaining and frightening story. However, the film feels like it tries to break away from being similar with a late plot twist that’s under-developed and will have viewers scratching their heads (and not in a good way). In Perfect Blue, Mima finds out that her manager is the one pretending to be her as she was angry that she strayed away from her perfect image. However, in Cam , Alice finds out that what is causing this identity swap is an “entity.” Yep, that’s it. There’s no real explanation she gets from it, except an “I don’t know” from her stalker and the film never really explains why Alice was targeted.
It doesn’t ruin the film by any means and leads to a really awesome end sequence, it just feels a little more unsatisfying and it feels like it just tries to stray from the norm without giving much context to do so.
Regardless, Cam is a great example of how great indie horror and Blumhouse truly is. It has an incredibly fresh, yet familiar concept that undoubtedly is one of the creepiest films you’ll see on Netflix and in film. Blumhouse has chalked up another winner with Cam and even with a slight stumble in the final act, it’s something that needs to be seen because it teases its viewers in all the right ways.
Rating: 9/10
-Tom Moore
