“Bodycam”

Found footage horror films can be a mixed bag, especially because so many of them tend to end up feeling repetitive or gimmicky. That’s why writer and director Brandon Christensen‘s “Bodycam” ended up being a pleasant surprise. Even though it leans heavily into the usual found footage style, it actually managed to keep me hooked for its entire (albeit brief) runtime.

The thriller follows two police officers (Sean Rogerson and Jaime M. Callica) who respond to a domestic dispute in a run down neighborhood. Things escalate quickly during the call and end in a tragic accidental shooting. Panicking about how the public will react, the officers decide to cover up what happened. That alone would make for a tense story, but the twist is that their body cameras might not be the only things watching.

The cover up is only the beginning of the nightmare. Because this is a found footage horror film, almost everything we see comes from police body cameras, security cameras, and other surveillance angles (all of that adds to the realism of the situation). As the officers scramble to keep their story straight, strange and increasingly disturbing things start showing up in the footage. It slowly dawns on them that whatever happened during that call may have awakened a supernatural force that isn’t about to let them get away with what they’ve done.

What I liked most about the storytelling here is how Christensen uses the format to build tension rather than just relying on jump scares. The bodycam perspective creates this claustrophobic feeling where you’re stuck right alongside the officers as their situation spirals out of control. The film plays with shadows, distorted audio, flickering footage, and brief glimpses of something not quite right in the frame. Some of the imagery is genuinely creepy, and I also liked how the film quietly plays with themes of surveillance and police accountability without turning into a lecture.

Like a lot of found footage movies, it can feel a little repetitive at times. The constant bodycam perspective is also a bit tiring. But for the most part it works, especially because the film keeps things tight and doesn’t drag things out longer than necessary. Tense, bloody, and creepy in all the right places, “Bodycam” is a solid indie horror thriller.

By: Louisa Moore