🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Brandon Christenson
If staring at video game for an hour and fifteen minutes is your idea of a swell time, then this might be the found footage film you’ve been waiting for all these years. The chaos isn’t too terribly chaotic. And it’s far more controlled than any film in the VHS series, but not as staid as the now bland nature of the Blair Witch Project.
Bodycam, with all of its aforementioned frenetic warts, is a mostly original idea that drops the viewer immediately into the mayhem of gritty police work. The film, directed by Brandon Christenson (Z (2019), Superhost (2021) and The Puppetman (2023)), follows two self-assured police officers who respond to a mundane domestic disturbance call.
This of course is not your run of the mill domestic disturbance, nor is it your average crack house setting. In fact the unwitting star of this hour and fifteen minute affair may very well be the derelict and horribly moldy home.
The Bodycam plot
Officer Jackson (Jaime M. Callica) and Office Bryce (Sean Rogerson) are quickly thrust into a satanic den of horrors and faced with a catatonic woman scribbling witchy runes and the word “RISE” thorough the house, and her befuddled partner who’s weirdly clutching a crack house blanket.
Neither satanic acolyte responds to the officers repeated attempts to understand the cabal that they’ve encountered. The officers are understandably bothered by the house, its inhabitants, and its demonic decor. As they try to assess the scene, the man holding the blanket rushes Officer Bryce who shoots him where he stands.
Officers Jackson and Bryce discover that this individual was holding an infant in the mangy blanket and Bryce quickly slides into self-protection mode as he spitballs a series of increasing corrupt options to get out from under the long arm of the law. Jackson meagerly objects to Bryce’s shady ways, but is ultimately complicit in their attempt to erase the un-erasable bodycams.
Immediately following the shooting Bryce and Jackson are met with packs of homeless people who repeatedly utter “You take something from him and he takes something from you.” It’s repeated over and over making each successive encounter all the more disturbing.
While it’s obvious who the “him” and the “something” is in this subject/object conundrum, it still rings as a peculiar bit of ghoulish business. As Jackson and Bryce continue to unravel emotionally and physically, it’s clear that the run of the mill domestic disturbance has taken on a much deeper meaning.
Should you see Bodycam?
Yes and no. This bit of found footage is somewhat original and really manages to stick with the foundational tenets of found footage — does the conceit explains why someone is dragging a camera around with them, and why is it that they never put the damn camera down? In both cases, the bodycam serves as the perfect foil for found footage. As we’re all now amateur sociologists in 2026, we’re all painfully aware that as a law enforcement officer you have to have the bodycam on throughout your entire shift. No ifs, ands, or buts.
The problem with the concept of bodycams is also the film’s undoing. They never meaningfully explore Jackson and Bryce’s perspective on bodycams, show the officers reactions in other situations, or give you any sense for their motivations as officers. There’s a cloying subplot about Bryce’s pregnant wife, but there’s very little exploration about the homeless population, their community, or the world around them. Not to mention that the bodycam perspective switches constantly between the two officers in an almost inexplicable manner.
Given our nation’s ongoing discussion around policing, police accountability, and the increasing use of law enforcement technology, there was ample opportunity to explore these topics. Unfortunately, they were largely left untouched in the evidence locker. What we’re left with is a broad brush of a bad cop and an equally generic good-ish cop.
Bodycam is short film. And that’s wonderful. However, this is also a film that should have either been expanded by a half hour or shortened by an hour. Both would have been suitable options for this satanic bit of storytelling.
Bodycam is likely Rated R and streaming on Shudder.