31 Days of Halloween: Cam

2018, Daniel Goldhaber (50 States of Fright) -- Netflix

Every season, there is going to be at least one of those, "Why exactly did we watch / keep watching that one?" We used it to fill that gap, so we don't spend the entire evening clicking through the downloads and the streaming services going, "What do you want to watch?" We still have a few we know we will watch during the season, but we like to pace those out for the most part. And yet, my brain still harkens back to the idea of, "Why the fuck are you wasting time on bad or painfully mediocre media when there is SO... MUCH... MORE ?!?!"

Cam was not terrible, nor was it really engaging to any degree. It was more another postulation, like Nope was, of an idea stretched out into a story. The basic plot, of Lola the camgirl (Madeline Brewer, Shining Girls) who finds herself replaced by a duplicate who milks Lola of her "fame & fortune", is relatively eerie, especially when they confirm it is not a stalker/look-alike, but a digital simulacrum that has gained some semblance of life on its own, but the movie is just primarily obsessed with the exploring the "life" of being a camgirl.

And breathe. TBH, I rather enjoy my massive run on sentences. I read far too much Victorian literature when I was a kid.

So, for those not in the know, a camgirl is at it's heart, a girl who strips and/or masturbates on a webcam to strangers in exchange for tips/coins. The industry, and don't be faint of heart, it is a strong segment of the sex worker industry, has built structures and cultures that can generate the popular girls a lot of money. The movie, which seems to be a writer/director finding a way to make money from his own addiction / awareness (*cough* research *cough*), introduces and explores all the aspects, such as obsessed fans who are deluded into believing they are close friends with the girls, to the amount of disposable income they can make, to the competition, and especially the escalation of their escapades in order to gain popularity / more tips / more money. Anyone can just masturbate, but building a character with emotional connection to a lot of lonely (but apparently wealthy) men takes care & skill.

Ed NOTE: A quick wiki read tells me the screenplay was actually written by an ex-camgirl who used the horror story as a way to tell people of her job. OK, fair enough.

The movie was not erotic or titillating in the least. It was kind of depressing. It was not scary and it was barely tense. About the only truly interesting aspect of it, and this was incredibly mild, was how Alice/Lola comes up with a way to defeat the doppelganger and regain her seat on the (*cough* vibrating *cough*) throne.

Ed. NOTE: This won film festival awards?!?! Sure, it was decently constructed and acted, but... really?!?!