‘Cam’ is a psychological horror film about cam girl Lola_Lola (Madeline Brewer), who one day finds that her account has been taken over by a girl who looks like her, a double: she then races to try and regain control of her account and stop the damage the double is doing to her life.
‘Cam’ is an uncomfortable watch that is the best way to describe it. It has many scenes that will make your skin crawl and will repulse you. There is a scene in the film’s third act where Lola, or Alice as that is her non-cam name, repeatedly hits a table with her face breaking her nose: there are minutes in this sequence where we can see her nose literally hanging off her face. I am not opposed to gore in any way, I love the work of Eli Roth, but there is something about this part of the film that made me feel sick. That is my main complaint with this film, it often goes too far.
The same can be said with the cam scenes themselves which again sometimes go a little far and border on soft-core porn. I understand that the writer of this film was a cam girl herself at one stage in her life and wanted to originally make this film a documentary, but even still.
Brewer plays both of the personas really well; I mean both Lola and her double as well as Alice and Lola. Throughout the course of the film you start to care for her and fear for her as she is in real danger. The threats in this film aren’t always what you would expect them to be: this isn’t a film like ‘US’ where the double try and get rid of the person, rather the threats come from the world of the cam girls. By that I mean the people who are paying them, some of Alice’s clients become quite threatening towards her and it makes you think about what would drive someone to willingly put themselves in danger like that.
As strange as it might be to say about a film revolving around cam girls, this film really makes you think. The interesting thing for me is that the double isn’t the antagonist of the film not really, the real antagonist of the film seems to be the clients and the world of camming which for me makes the film far more interesting. This is not an easy film to watch, but if you do manage to sit through it there are some fascinating ideas being floated around.
Pros.
Making The World The Threat.
Brewster.
A Great Sense Of Tension.
Some intriguing Ideas Being Explored.
Cons.
A Little Too Graphic For Me, In Multiple Regards.
Another Millennial Reviewer 