Full disclosure: The whole "camming" thing is not something I'm overtly familiar with- it's just not my thing. As such, most of the info in this review is either gleaned from this movie, which was reportedly written by a former "cam girl" by the name of Isa Mazzei, and a friend of mine who is into that sort of thing. So, apologies if I get anything wrong.
Anyway, from what I understand- and feel free to skip the next few paragraphs if you already know all this stuff- it involves a girl (or one assumes, a guy, if you swing that way) sitting in front of a camera, typically alone, but occasionally with a "friend" (or "friends"), who interact online with a group of people who then comment directly to her, compelling her to do certain things.
Depending on how many tips she gets- in the form of "tokens," which I gather participants buy via credit cards or Paypal or whatever- she'll either take things to the next "level" or she won't, with the next level being taking off her clothes, masturbating, or doing something sexual with a partner, if someone else is present there with her.
I gather from this movie that each site has a sort of "rating" system, in which the girls are ranked by the amount of tokens they receive from patrons, so that the most popular girls are in the top ten, with the other girls ranked accordingly below them.
This sets up a sort of hierarchy in which the girls compete to be the most popular, often doing crazier and crazier things to get attention from their patrons. Those who don't tend to rank lower on the "charts," and according to this movie, some don't even strip, but just do it to chat with others or flirt or whatever. One can also request a "private" chat, which is a more intimate experience than a group one, for obvious reasons.
So, basically, it's just a variation of a strip club, only the girls aren't actually present, and therefore, can do pretty much anything they want from the privacy of their own homes or at a "cam club," which is a central location attached to a given website where girls gather that offers a bit more protection from those who might try and seek out their location via hacking and the like.
It's against the back-drop of this world that the movie Cam takes place. The film revolves around Alice Ackerman (Madeline Brewer, Orange is the New Black, The Handmaid's Tale), a cam girl that is seeking to improve her ranking by doing increasingly outlandish stuff that leans towards the violent and extreme.
Recruiting an ardent fan, Tinker (Patch Darragh, The Path, Everything Sucks!), to help set up the fakery, she succeeds in her goal, but then wakes up one day to find a look-a-like impostor has taken over her account and is doing thing under her account name "Lola" that even she wouldn't do- and is enjoying even more success than she did previously, and reaping the according financial benefits, to add insult to injury.
Alice attempts to combat the girl by changing her password, but the girl has already done just that, locking her out of her own account, which makes it that much tougher to plead her case with the company she works for. Eventually, she seeks out the site's owner, who thinks she is the scammer after "Lola" posts live while they are having dinner.
She does glean one important bit of information- where another girl, who goes by the username "Baby" (Imani Hakim, Everybody Hates Chris, The Gabby Douglas Story) and is scheduled to do a live show with "Lola," is located.
However, when she goes to track her down to warn her about working with the impostor, she finds out some shocking information that upends what she- and by extension, we- previously thought was going on.
I won't spoil anymore moving forward, except to say that things get increasingly weirder and possibly more supernatural as they go along. The ending is a bit confusing, TBH, but I think I got the gist of what was going on. Let's just say, as sci-fi as it seems, it actually isn't that far out of the realm of possibility, given what people get up to with technology these days.
So, basically, what we have here is a sort of Black Mirror-esque cautionary tale about the perils of putting yourself online, and how others can take advantage of that for their own gain, as well as how dangerous and hurtful doing something like this can be to one's well-being.
For instance, as the faux "Lola" becomes more bold in what she does, it gains her more attention, which in turn leads to members of Alice's own family being affected by it, once her identity becomes that much more public.
In one instance that I am aware of as being grounded in the truth, the fake her does a show on the down-low from a local library that causes quite a stir. I distinctly remember this happening IRL with a girl named Kendra Sutherland, who became an overnight sensation, as she was publicly identified as a college student by people who recognized the library as being one at a local university in Oregon.
The event all but upended her life, as she was not only fined for "public indecency," but her parents found out about it, as well as her having to explain it to the rest of her family. (You can read more about her here.)
She's since "leaned in" to it, and has gone into full-blown porn, so lest you think that someone who gets into a crazy situation like we see in this movie might not double-down on it, know that it's not that far-fetched.
Although having her mother be completely on-board with it was perhaps a bit much. (Incidentally, that's former Boogie Nights faux porn star Melora Walters playing mom, in a clever bit of casting.)
All in all, Cam is reasonably entertaining, even if it strains credibility at times- but then again, it is a movie, so it's hardly the first time a movie (much less a horror film, which this more or less is when all is said and done), has done precisely that, so it seems unfair to call it out for being hard to swallow.
Star Brewer, who looks a bit like a combination of Pretty Little Liar Lucy Hale and Katie McGrath (of Supergirl and Jurassic World fame), is pretty much game for anything, and really goes for broke in the role, which, in addition to the expected nudity, also requires her to do some pretty out-there stuff, at one point suggestively touching herself while covered in blood!
But beyond the obvious, Brewer is actually quite effective in the role beyond the more prurient level. You really care about her and her fate, and I liked the way the film wasn't afraid of showing the real-world implications of doing something this for a living, and how it has both an upside (Alice apparently made enough from her work to buy a house and some expensive furniture) and an enormous downside (online stalkers and overzealous and just plain mean fan-boys and trolls; your friends and family finding out, if you do it on the down-low).
The movie marks the feature film directorial debut of Daniel Goldhaber, who does a nice job of going in-between a found footage-adjacent online-based film and the "real-life" action beyond the screen.
I get the sense that he toyed with the idea of making the whole film on-line, but wisely opted to go back-and-forth instead, allowing for some heightened dramatic action, as Alice's situation becomes more public and more dangerous.
As aforementioned, the film was Isa Mazzei, a former cam girl herself. She initially planned to do a documentary about the whole camming scene, but after she found some people were confused by it, she opted to turn it into a narrative horror film instead.
I can relate- when a friend of mine told me he was into it, I was like "Why?- It's just a new way to bilk people of their cash!" At least in a strip club the girls are actually there in front of you, not separated by an entire virtual world. But, after having seen this film, I kind of get it, even if it doesn't appeal to me personally.
To be fair, neither do I really get the appeal of a strip club, either. As Chris Rock says: "No matter what they tell you, there is NO sex in the Champagne Room," lol. I haven't actually been to one since my brother-in-law's bachelor's party ages ago.
In my mind, why spend my hard-earned money on virtual sex or whatever, when I can just cut to the chase and watch porn for free? Or better yet, have actual sex with a woman, lol. But to each their own, I guess.
Anyway, Mazzei based the movie on her own experiences, taking inspiration from the fact that people would record her sessions and re-post them on porn sites without her permission.
When she tried to do something about it, she was frustrated by how little sympathy she received, including from police, one of which even went so far as to hit on her, which is in the movie.
She also took inspiration from her issues trying to sell the project around Hollywood, noting that she kept getting asked: "What's the weirdest thing you've ever been asked to do?"- something she also incorporated into the film, such as when an online user tells Alice to stab or kill herself.
Also of note is the fact that Mazzei and director Goldhaber are long-time friends and he even directed some of her videos, including ones of the porn variety. For this reason, the film has a somewhat unique opening credit of being "A Film by Isa Mazzei & Daniel Goldhaber," rather than the usual director-only credit.
In other words, it's more of a collaboration between the writer and the director than the more traditional approach of giving the director all of the credit for a film, which is pretty cool, given how writers are often slighted in the process.
Note all the films which start out with "A Film by" so-and-so director, making it seem like they are the only ones responsible for the outcome, when, in reality, it's a much more collaborative process. This film bucks that trend, so that's pretty cool.
Cam isn't a perfect film, but the premise is a neat one, and it's never less than compelling, even if the end results might leave some wanting, given that it has a sort of open-ended finale and doesn't quite spell things out for the viewer as much as they might like. But I think I got the overall point of things, and I get why the filmmakers ended things the way they did.
Star Brewer is excellent, and the supporting cast (which also includes Samantha Robinson, of The Love Witch, and Jessica Parker Kennedy, of The Flash) is pretty solid as well, helping the film rise above its more exploitative elements.
It may not have made me want to rush to my computer to check out the whole cam scene, but it did give me a lot to think about- and write about, apparently, given the length of this review!
Cam is available on Netflix and is well-worth checking out, especially if the premise grabs you. Just remember the next time some of you do the cam thing: that person on the other end may not be the person you think they are!
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