It’s crazy to think that the “found footage” horror genre has been going strong since popularized all the way back in 1991 with The Blair Witch Project back in 1999. I remember being in college and thanks to an incredibly effective marketing campaign, I thought I was witnessing the mental unraveling and murder of three filmmakers by a witch in the woods of Maryland. After more than 35 years, it seems as though the gimmick of the “found footage” style of filmmaking has been almost played out from how many films have adopted it to give us plenty of fun jump scares. However, Shudder’s latest film Body Cam manages to still entertain by utilizing the “police body cam” style of filmmaking made popular by such films as End of Watch and even 2020’s film of the same name Body Cam (which also was a supernatural horror film) to help revitalize the genre.
Body Cam focuses on beat cop partners Officers Jackson (Jaime M. Callica) and Bryce (Sean Rogerson) as they respond to a domestic incident one night in the city. When they first arrive at the place, everything seems to be pretty normal (as normal as one could expect for a domestic incident, after all this area of town is known for their “tweakers”). However, once they enter the home, things take a left turn rather quickly. The first big red flag noticed is a plethora of demonic writings all over the walls of the home, and the lack of anyone in the home. When the two officers run into one tweaker, things go south and an accidental shooting occurs. What makes Body Cam interesting is that, given the claustrophobic nature of the event, and the fact that the person shot was not responding to the officer’s commands, it almost feels like a “justified” shooting thanks to the officers’ perspective of shooting the film using their body cams. However, Bryce proceeds to freak out in the aftermath of the shooting and convinces Jackson to go along with the cover up.
It turns out that Bryce and Jackson’s body cams weren’t the only thing that observed them killing the people in the house. That’s where Body Cam formally introduces a supernatural element into the film. Turns out, this town has an occult problem. Even a techie that Bryce has in his pocket won’t help him delete the body cam footage once she learns whose house they entered, as it’s not just an urban legend, but a town taboo to get involved with what goes on in that side of town. To help offer perspective, Jackson’s mother is very familiar with what’s going on and helps coast the two how to “survive the night” as now they are being hunted by “something” and all of that entity’s minions.
Running at a crisp 75 minutes, Body Cam doesn’t waste much time as the two officers are in for a night they will never forget. No matter where they turn, they seem to be hunted by this entity seeking justice, and its endless minions (AKA the tweakers) as they seem to appear in every corner of the city trying to find them. At first, Body Cam seems to be in thriller territory, but towards the end of the film, it goes into full blown horror territory. While the film doesn’t have many effective jump scares, it’s true terror lies in the eerie atmosphere as they go from building to (endlessly large and empty) building trying to escape but also investigate what’s going on enough to survive the night. Body Cam also realizes it doesn’t have the biggest budget (which is painfully displayed when you finally get to see the monster in the film’s third act), it plays around with atmospheric editing, and using the digital freezes from the body cam footage to keep the scary things that go bump in the night just out of focus or pixelated just enough to allow your mind to scare you more than the film would.
That said, Body Cam is somewhat predictable, especially in the film’s ending. And once again, their shooting was justified (and this is coming from someone who almost never sees many shootings as justified), and in a logical world, this film would last a total of 15 minutes as they would have already been home after their shooting, but this is a horror movie, so it requires it’s lead characters to make stupid mistakes for the sake of keeping the audience entertained.
While Body Cam may be light on character work and a fairly predictable ending, writer/director Brandon Christensen makes up for it in creeping you the hell out with extreme atmospheric tension as you are drawn into a world that feels like it’s just a “little” different than the one we live in. The creepiness goes a long way in ramping up the tension as you truly don’t know what’s two feel away from the camera’s vision, which leads this to be an effective and tension-filled cinematic experience.
Body Cam is now playing in Shudder.
