Cam girl addict, slacker and online Blackjack bro Jack (Peter Vack) thinks all of his dreams have come true when he spots his favourite web dominatrix in the wild. When he’s not trying to scrape together rent money by playing cards online, Jack spends his days slurping instant noodles from a cup and jerking off to aloof cam girls. Of them all, his favourite is Scarlet (Julia Fox), a dominatrix and would-be artist who Jack spots in real life, at the local convenience store. Voyeurism is all well and good, until you find yourself following a real-life woman down dark alleyways late at night.
But Ben Hozie’s psycho-sexual drama is more than just another sleazy horror film about an obsessive white man and his prey. PVT Chat is a chaotic, bare-all (literally, when it comes to full-frontal male nudity) character study with more in common with Uncut Gems than, say, Open Windows. The film even shares a leading lady with the Safdie Brothers’ celebrated NYC-’em-up, in the magnetic Julia Fox.
What this meandering, rambling film lacks in urgency and pace, it makes up for with considerable atmosphere and commitment to the bit. Both Fox and Vack put in admirable performances as Jack and Scarlet; this tragic, deluded little man as pitiable as he is creepy. It’s Uncut Gems meets Daniel Goldhaber’s Cam. It’s kind of gross, but you won’t be able to take your eyes off of it.
