Bodycam review – low-budget chiller oozes with supernatural menace

When a couple of cops turn up to a domestic violence call, things take a nasty turn as we see the mayhem unfold thanks to their body-worn cameras

At its best, this low-budget found-footage horror recalls the early Paranormal Activity films, with plenty of jump-scares and low-fi atmospheric eeriness. The “found footage” here isn’t black-and-white security videos though, but the bodycams worn by a pair of cops on what they initially believe to be a routine domestic violence call in a neighbourhood noted for its large population of “tweakers” (AKA methamphetamine addicts).

Shot on location in Alberta, Canada, the film makes good use of real derelict locations, giving a plausible griminess to a broadly supernatural tale. The bodycam conceit starts out as an ace up the film’s sleeve before gradually becoming a bit of a liability, though in a way that is different from the usual pitfalls of the genre. In most found-footage films, the nagging question is why and how the filming would plausibly continue – there is usually a point where a character’s self-preservation would take precedence over neatly capturing whatever mayhem is going down. The bodycam conceit handily avoids this issue – the filming is passive and the cameras cannot be turned off.

But where it does get a little boxed in is that everything is locked into a continuous period of time filmed from only the point of view of the two cameras. At some points, this claustrophobia works well, but at others, you may feel a bit stuck with the two leads’ crisis mode; there is never going to be a period of respite where they head home for supper and just hang out with loved ones. Bodycam’s approach makes sense formally, but does make it more difficult to bond with the characters. On the other hand, who needs bonding when you’re running around tweakerville being menaced by some sort of hideous entity? There is an undeniable energy and spookiness to this low-budget chiller, which makes intelligently modest use of digital FX in a way that some bigger-budget projections would do well to emulate.

• Bodycam is on Shudder and AMC+ from 13 March.