Accountability Turns Apocalyptic

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MOVIE REVIEWS
Bodycam
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Genre: Horror, Found Footage, Supernatural
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 15m
Director(s): Brandon Christensen
Writer(s): Ryan Christensen, Brandon Christensen
Cast: Jaime M. Callica, Sean Rogerson, Catherine Lough Haggquist, Angel Prater, Keegan Connor Tracy
Where to Watch: available, streaming on Shudder March 13, 2026

RAVING REVIEW: BODYCAM doesn’t ease you in, and that works in its favor. It puts you in the passenger seat of a patrol car and lets the tension simmer from there. Two officers. A routine response to a call. Some remarks that reveal more than they should. You know something’s going to go wrong. The film knows it too. It’s just waiting for the exact second to pull the pin.

Brandon Christensen has built a career around turning everyday tensions into horror, often filtering fear through family dynamics. With BODYCAM, he pivots toward institutional fear. The horror isn’t just what’s inside the house. It’s what happens when power makes a mistake and refuses to own it. The central incident is brutal in its simplicity. A call to a suburban home escalates. The power is out. Dispatch interference builds unease. A scream forces entry. In a basement, a frightened officer fires. What follows isn’t just the aftermath of a tragic accident. It’s the unraveling of two men who realize the narrative around what happened may matter more than the truth.

Sean Rogerson’s Officer Bryce is reactive, impulsive, and terrified of judgment. Jaime M. Callica’s Officer Jackson is measured and grounded, but not immune to pressure. Their dynamic carries the film. Bryce immediately starts calculating the optics of the situation, but Jackson wants procedure. That ideological split fuels the first half with real dramatic tension.

The script doesn’t ignore community context. Jackson grew up in the area they’re policing. Bryce sees it as hostile territory. Those distinctions matter, and the focus on them helps. The film doesn’t overstate its commentary, but it’s clearly aware of modern conversations around policing, accountability, and public perception. That awareness adds weight to every decision the characters make. Without becoming a slogan, the film acknowledges a tension many audiences already feel that accountability can apply beyond a single badge to the culture surrounding it.

Once the cover-up discussion begins, BODYCAM shifts from procedural drama to something more unnerving. The found footage format locks us into their perspective. There’s no objective camera to soften the blow. If they miss something, we miss it. If something sits just outside their line of sight, we feel that dread with them.

Christensen commits to the bodycam aesthetic. Performances drive the framing. Actors physically control what we see. That choice gives the film a unique immediacy. When panic sets in, the camera shakes. When a flashlight beam catches something unexpected, it feels accidental rather than staged. That authenticity is the film’s biggest strength.

Then the supernatural layer begins to creep in.

What initially feels like guilt morphs into something else entirely. A hole in the basement wall hints at something larger than a domestic dispute gone wrong. The suggestion that the officers took something they shouldn’t have and now owe something in return gives the story an edge without explaining it. This ambiguity works for a while. The less defined the threat is, the more oppressive it feels. BODYCAM thrives with a controlled atmosphere. The house, the sense of being watched, the escalating paranoia, all of it builds into a suffocating experience. The 75-minute runtime keeps things tight. There’s no room for filler.

Where the film stumbles is in the final stretch. Some of the visual effects push beyond what the budget comfortably supports. Early scenes rely on suggestion and shadow, which are far more effective. Later scenes become more explicit, which undercuts some of the grounded tension established earlier. The ambition is admirable. The execution isn’t. I’ll keep saying it until the world listens. “You don’t always need to see the scary.” Ultimately, putting a ‘face’ to the unseen hurts the film far more than it helps.

Jackson’s internal struggle feels layered and human. You can see the weight settling on him as loyalty battles his conscience. Bryce occasionally leans into more predictable territory as the man unraveling under pressure. Secondary characters add some context, particularly in how the incident affects family dynamics, but they aren’t given quite enough space to breathe.

As a found-footage film, BODYCAM understands its limitations and mostly works within them. It doesn’t reinvent the subgenre, but it applies it to a topical setting that feels uncomfortable and in focus. The format enhances the moral claustrophobia. You’re trapped with these men as they spiral. What ultimately keeps BODYCAM at a mid-tier level rather than becoming something more is its lack of cohesion. The social commentary, the procedural tension, and the supernatural horror elements don’t always coalesce. Individually, they’re strong. Together, they sometimes feel slightly misaligned.

BODYCAM doesn’t feel disposable. It feels like a filmmaker taking a swing at something bigger than the frame allows. Not every swing connects, but the effort is visible. For fans of found footage and socially aware horror, there’s enough here to justify the watch.

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[photo courtesy of SHUDDER, AMC+, SUPERCHILL]

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