The first thing I have to state (that I've stated many times in the past) is that I'm not really a fan of found footage or first person type flicks because they just have never sat right with me on some level. There's a layer of believability there that just doesn't process through my brain the right way and I end up not even giving a shit by the time a film like that is over. Dasher here however is something different. It's neither first person nor found footage because the entire thing was filmed guerilla style with a dash cam-Dasher filmed with a dash cam-huh-I don't know if that small little detail was intentional or not by directors Tom Zompakos and Juan Pablo Pendas, but I genuinely enjoyed it a lot more than a scenario where a guy somehow is still holding onto a camera while people are getting torched in the middle of a street by a psycho with a flamethrower or while some insane Godzilla styled creature is destroying everything in it's wake and he somehow captures all of it on film and never drops the damn thing. Ever. This almost forty minute chunk really kept me engaged mostly because of the characters Juan, his annoyingly hilarious friend Grits (who was played by Zompakos himself) and Juan's girlfriend Jimena and the fact that they just felt real and the situations they were in while Juan was delivering the food items he needed to while door-dashing could and probably have actually happened at some point. There probably is a door dash delivery guy somewhere that has a pal that is in the nose candy industry who doesn't have a car that looks like a mix between Bono and Ringo from The Beetles (it's those blue sunglasses man) who has infinite excuses for literally everything that seemingly needs a ride everywhere. I really enjoyed it when Grits was razzing Juan for taking his car to six different car washes in just that week alone and that he could eat spaghetti off the hood of it without a plate. That was a good riff-it shows that Juan gives a shit about how his car looks while he's doing his job, but he also probably wants to wash the slimy residue off the exterior from Grits getting in and out of it all the time as, well-the guy is a dealer and he's into it with the grimiest of people. Grits even drinks and eats a bit of one of Juan's customers' food when he's not in the car and then when he delivers it, the dude gets pissed and kind of just tosses it in the grass. Honestly, I haven't even made it to the horror part of Dasher yet and I'm smiling just because of the character interactions and dialogue that they spit between each other as they are driving around. Really quick though-there are some really cool camera angles that were employed here even with just a dash cam so the cinematography is really solid and I watched it in 4k on YouTube so that was a plus. And, I'm a big music guy in general so I have to plug the score put together here by B'Monea because the music played a massive part in the overall enjoyment of this flick. It wasn't overwritten, it wasn't off by any means and it fit perfectly with what was going on at the moment while viewing this thing. But here's the horror part-there's a scene where Juan partakes in deviating his septum, and while he's getting high, some guy is chasing a woman in a goat's head/Baphomet mask and a fucking meat cleaver and gashes her all over the hood of his car. He of course drives away not even really knowing if that was real or not or if it was a product of the coke-but that sort of thing sticks with you. After that, he's basically stalked the whole rest of the film by this demon guy because he wants to snuff him out because of Juan witnessing his murder. Or I'm guessing at that. Either way, that bastard wants him dead and I'm not into spoiling an ending but with what I just stated, you might be able to surmise how this thing closes-and it's not good. All I'm going to state here as I'm sealing this up is that Dasher is a great time and I really hope to see more from Tom Zompakos in the future-Dasher is up on his YouTube channel named Hurricane Party Studio and if you dig the film as much as I did, there's always liking, commenting and subscribing. All I'm saying zits and zombies is help this man out-we need more indie films these days and this is a good a place as any to start. Now I need to kick Grits' ass out of my car. I have some McDonald's to deliver.
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