CAM is a technology-driven psychological thriller set in the world of webcam porn. It follows Alice, an ambitious camgirl, who wakes up one day to discover she’s been replaced on her show with an exact replica of herself. As this copy begins to push the boundaries of Alice’s internet identity, the control that Alice has over her life, and the men in it, vanishes. While she struggles to regain what she’s lost, she slowly finds herself drawn back to her show and to the mysterious person who has taken her place.

I love Fantasia Fest and CAM is a perfect example of why.  Let me start off by saying that I really enjoyed this film!  I learned so much when it came to the life of a camgirl.  I am aware that this type of entertainment is out there, but I had no idea what it involved.  Now you may say, “what is a cam girl?”  In short, it’s a model who will stream online (mostly erotic content) in exchange for money, goods or attention.  And at times this streaming can take over their lives, as we saw in this film.

CAM starts off with us coming into the very pink bedroom where a show is taking place, performed by a character named Lola.  She is interacting with her viewers online who are bidding tokens relating to different acts she could perform.  Everything is going well when suddenly an anonymous viewer comes online and urges her and her viewers to have her use a knife on herself. It takes a lot of token bids, but Lola goes along with it and slits her own throat.

It was at this point I was asking questions out loud like where is this going from here, who is the girl, and is this anonymous bidder going to strike again?   As I am questioning what just happened, Lola looks up at the camera, smiles and thanks the viewers for bidding so many tokens that she is rising and on her way to the Top 50 girls on the site “freegirlslive.com”. It was all part of an act that she was trying out. This is all in just the first six minutes of the film!

We come into the story of Alice (Madeline Brewer), who performs as Lola.   She is in her early 20s and is seen in a salon getting her hair done by her mother (Melora Walters).  Her younger brother Jordon (Devin Druid) is there too, and it’s established with little dialogue that she and her brother are very close, and that her mom does not know what Alice does for a living. Before she leaves the salon, she commits to being at Jordon’s 17^th birthday party and then goes about her day.

Then we start getting into the bulk of the story, the fact that someone out there is impersonating Alice as Lola, all the way down to mimicking her very pink bedroom.  All of this seems to start when Alice decides to break her own performing rules of being too erotic.   From here, her life starts to spiral out of control.

There are other characters we meet along the way that play into some important factors of what happens next for Alice. One is named Tinker (Patch Darragh) who feels he has a connection to Alice.  And Bruce (Michael Dempsey) who is an older married man who takes credit for these cam girls success since he is such a big-time tipper.

The writing was so good and a lot of that has to come from writer Isa Mazzei’s own first hand experiences as a camgirl herself. The little touches she has put in throughout the film that feel like they come from living in this world constantly set a tone of who Alice is and where she comes from. Along with director Daniel Goldhaber, they have created a film that beams with authenticity. Though there are parts of the movie where no dialogue is happening, the way in which the camera pans around the room or pushes in on a character says so much.

The editing, lighting and music I loved! Especially the lighting since it appeared to be telling a story all its own within the scenes that were playing out. This film has such an outstanding visual and audio design to it.

This was super clever and so intense!  I sat literally clutching my arm rests and my mind raced trying to figure out what was going to come next, and so often I was surprised.   As I’ve said before, I love Fantasia Fest!  This has been one of the best movies I have seen come from Fantasia 2018.   I highly recommend you see it too!