BODYCAM Review: The Most Terrifying Episode of COPS You'll Ever See

If you’ve ever seen the documentary television series Cops, you’ll have familiarity with the formula that virtually episode follows.

 

Without scripted dialogue or added music and sound effects, each episode provides viewers a fly-on-the-wall perspective of real-life police officers on patrol, following up on 9-1-1 calls, pulling over erratic drivers, serving warrants, and so on.

 

Now imagine if a typical episode of Cops took a sudden, unexpected turn when the police officers stumble upon satanic rituals, possessions, and all manner of strange supernatural occurrences. That’s the jumping-off point for Bodycam, an intense and inventive new horror film debuting on Shudder.

 

From director Brandon Chirstensen (Night of the Reaper), Bodycam follows two police officers (Jaime Callica and Sean Rogerson) who respond to a domestic dispute in a dilapidated neighborhood. The situation they walk into is bizarre, to say the least, and quickly escalates, leading to a tragic accident and frantic attempts to cover up their wrongdoing. As the night unfolds and the officers become increasingly desperate, they realize that they’ve stumbled into a situation far more dangerous and demonic than they could have possibly imagined.

 

Bodycam kicks off with an intensity and tension most horror films could only dream on. Unlike many horror movies that opt for a slow escalation of the unusual, the first 10-15 minutes of the film quickly plummet our lead characters into a harrowing and nail-biting predicament.

 

The tension feels so palpable that it’s difficult to conceive how a feature-length film could sustain such intensity beyond this introduction. When the title sequence finally appears, director and co-writer Brandon Christensen informs viewers that the unsettling prologue, which could easily serve as a compelling horror short in and of itself, is just the beginning of a long night for the two police officers.

 

Remarkably, Christensen manages to largely maintain the prologue’s tension throughout the proceeding film. He does so, in part, by shelving the horror after this beginning and transforming his film into a psychological thriller for a sizable portion of its runtime.

 

Having accidentally committed a crime that one of the officers desperately wants to cover up, our leads are forced to ignore the oddities of the domestic dispute they interrupted to avoid being crucified by the public for their actions. The subsequent suspense, therefore, does not come from weird symbols, strange behaviors nor a supernatural force lurking in the background, but, rather, the interpersonal conflict between the two officers. One of them wants to cover up his tracks by any means necessary, while the other believes they should come clean and not dig a deeper hole than they’re already in. 

 

The pivot away from horror to psychological thriller works well in giving the film narrative substance beyond its supernatural foundation, although this shift deprives the story of the dread and unease many may hope to experience from watching a horror movie. 

 

Thankfully, Bodycam embraces its status as a horror film more resoundingly in its second half. As the night progresses, the police officers become less interested in whether or not to cover up a crime and more invested in deciphering the strange occurrences unfolding before their eyes. Much of these occurrences revolve around the unusual behaviors of homeless drug users, which characterizes easily the most novel element of Christensen’s movie. 

 

Most people have probably seen videos on the news or on social media of fentanyl users on the streets of the U.S. experiencing extreme sedation, loss of motor control, rigidity in their muscles, or, perhaps described less formally, looking and behaving like zombies. Christensen takes the inherent horror of these images and uses it as the backbone for much of his film’s scares and the crux of its topical message. 

 

As the brief 75-minute runtime progresses, it becomes clear that the street-wandering drug users populating the neighborhoods the police officers visit share some kind of collective hive mind and are all under the influence of a satanic entity. In doing so, Christensen amplifies an existing horror of the real-world by fusing it with supernatural terror. The result is a number of unnerving visuals that intelligently tap into viewers’ pre-established beliefs about zombie-like fentanyl users. 

 

Unfortunately, Christensen does not explore this bridging of drug use and demonic possession to its fullest potential. Instead, the filmmaker leaves this creative idea to largely serve as an interesting horror movie visual that takes something scary in the real-world and makes it even scarier by fusing it with something otherworldly. He doesn’t couple this imagery with a profound or thought-provoking message, other than coming to the rather simplistic conclusion that the drug addicts we see paralyzed or wandering the streets may actually be under the influence of the devil.

 

In the absence of intriguing commentary to ponder, Bodycam further strays in dabbling too much in the hallucinogenic and mind-bending in its final act. The heightening of unusual or unexplainable events steadily removes one from the once palpable tension and will make viewers scratch their heads in attempts to understand what exactly is going on, more so than being immersed in the terrors on display. 

 

That being said, the film ramps things up considerably in regards to thrills and chills in its final ten minutes or so. Much like how he began the story, Christensen bookends his film with a similarly unsettling conclusion filled with eerie imagery and quiet dread, in addition to some pretty spectacular creature design.

 

Christensen's movie may err in its failure to make the most of a creative, topical message and devolves into mind-bending territory too much in its final act, but the intensity and filmmaking inventiveness on display are undeniably effective. Watch Bodycam if you want to experience the craziest and most terrifying episode of Cops you’ve ever seen.