Director: Markian Tarasiuk
Writers: Sean Harris Oliver, Markian Tarasiuk
Stars: Miranda MacDougall, Markian Tarasiuk, Ryan Alexander McDonald
Synopsis: Two decades after her brother mysteriously disappeared on Vancouver Island, a documentary filmmaker sets out to solve his missing person’s case. When a disturbing piece of evidence is revealed, she comes to believe he might still be alive.
Stories of cold cases have made for some of the most fascinating films in history. Zodiac, Memories of Murder, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri are just some examples from this century. There’s something about a case being solved and loved ones getting that long-deserved closure that feels so satisfying to watch. Narrative features like the ones mentioned above, combined with the rise of true crime documentaries and television shows, have certainly informed Hunting Matthew Nichols, the new horror film from Markian Tarasiuk.
The film follows a documentarian (Tarasiuk as himself) helping a grieving sister, Tara (Miranda MacDougall), reopen the case of her brother Matthew, who went missing in 2001. Taking a page (or several chapters) from The Blair Witch Project, Hunting Matthew Nichols blends documentary style with found footage horror, causing the audience to forget if this is real or not when the movie is at its peak.
The narrative structure offers some compelling opportunities, but ultimately follows too many conventions to stand out. Too much time is spent on catching the audience up on the case’s background rather than on new breaks and leads that propel stories like this forward. The initial mystery surrounding Matthew’s disappearance just isn’t interesting enough for us to spend half the runtime hashing out. Once the first domino falls in the case, though, the story picks up a lot of steam.
MacDougall is really solid as Tara Nichols and plays into the faux documentary style well. Since she’s the main subject, the movie rests squarely on her shoulders as the driving force. At no point does it feel like she’s acting as someone in a documentary, but rather feels like a real person being documented. You can feel the anguish and grief she’s going through as she digs deeper into Matthew’s disappearance, and how it’s shaped her for the majority of her life. Without her steadiness at the center of the film, the whole thing would fall apart.
Director Tarasiuk plays a very interesting version of himself as well, leaning into the documentary filmmaker who inserts himself too much into the film. There are many scenes where he can be seen interacting with the subjects rather than staying behind the camera. As things escalate, it makes sense to see more of him as he urges Tara not to continue with the investigation.
Like most found footage films, this one hides the ball for a lot of the runtime to preserve budget and heighten suspense and curiosity for when all is revealed at the end. The found footage aspect not only includes the documentary, but also tapes recovered from Matthew’s camera after he went missing. Tara and the documentary team pore over these tapes, looking for clues as to what might have happened. The tapes are used cleverly, using great sound design to bring the audience in close to discover what’s going on alongside the documentary crew.
If you’re even a lightly seasoned fan of horror, you can pretty easily guess where Hunting Matthew Nichols is headed from the jump. For some, that may be a knock on a movie that rests a lot on the shoulders of mystery. For others, the journey may still be enjoyable enough even if you have a good idea of where it ends up. I found it incredibly frustrating and quickly became impatient with the first half of the film. It’s very possible I just have a case of “I’ve seen too many movies,” but I couldn’t get past this when thinking about the film.
Overall, Hunting Matthew Nichols is pretty uneven, with an uneventful first half and a final fifteen minutes that are good, but don’t quite justify the rest of the film. While this outing is unsuccessful, Tarsiuk has some interesting ideas at play here that could prove fruitful in future endeavors.
