Wherein the A.V. Club redeems itself for suggesting Cam as a hidden gem ... but I am beginning to think that streaming services take a VERY broad view of "horror movies."
I guess I never really thought about, or knew anything about, the world of cam girls. On the one hand, I can appreciate and give moral support to these women who have found a way to more safely make money as sex workers - it's peep shows for the 21st century. On the other hand, WTF men? Buncha creepers.
Alice/Lola (a fantastic Madeline Brewer) is an up-and-coming cam girl whose account gets hacked by a lookalike. More quickly than one might think, her life starts going off the rails - the fake Lola sends a stalkery weirdo to Alice's mom's salon, her little brother's friends fin d out his sister goes online porn. Her cam girl friends/coworkers are unsympathetic, the site's IT department is no help and the cops are either scornful/disgusted or far too interested in what she does. It's up to the OG Lola to figure out who (or what) her doppelganger is.
SPOILER BELOW I'M SPOILING THIS MOVIE WHICH IS NOT A NEW RELEASE BUT YOU'VE BEEN WARNED
The fake Lola isn't real: she's an online deepfake that a bot put together after noticing how much money she was making, cobbling together old footage and coming up with new ways to interact with her patrons. That's some serious Black Mirror shit right there - and not too far from our own future, from what I've read. This is a fascinating little movie some big ideas and, for the most part, it pulls them off. What it isn't, however, is horror. Scary? No. Suspenseful? Not really. Gory? There's some blood but not even a bucketful. But I liked it and thought it was entertaining and I have certainly spent worse ninety minutes.
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