Review: ‘Hunting Matthew Nichols’ spins chilling mystery
Markian Tarasiuk’s latest offering explores a decades-old cold case.
Under the found footage umbrella, there are subgenres like screenlife (Unfriended, The Den) and mockumentary (Horror in the High Desert, Hell House LLC). Since The Blair Witch Project decimated barriers 25 years ago, found footage has expanded and experimented with various themes, styles, and tones. It’s as popular a genre today as it’s ever been. After making its world premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival, Markian Tarasiuk’s Hunting Matthew Nichols promises to make quite a splash when it’s widely released. While treading familiar crime/thriller territory, the film presents strong character work and unleashes its deliciously spun unholy terror in the finale.
It’s 2001, and two teens Matt and Jordan leave their homes in an idyllic suburb on Halloween night. With a handheld camera in tow, they venture into a nearby forest intending to make a movie. They are never seen again. The resulting investigation leads police to a dilapidated cabin in the woods, where they discover the camera covered in the kids’ fingerprints and nothing else. Calling off the search, the authorities order the cabin to be bulldozed, and the trail runs cold.
In the present, Matt’s sister Tara (Tara Nichols) plots a documentary to record her own quest for answers. Returning home for the first time in years, she hopes to expose the truth about her brother’s disappearance and finally find peace. With her director Markian Tarasiuk (playing himself), Tara interviews various residents, including her mother, about what may have happened. Talking heads mix with real investigation footage in classic mockumentary fashion. After confronting the police about withheld evidence, she dives deeper into the unknown and begins unraveling loose ends that just don’t make much sense. Inevitably, her findings lead her to hike out into the same expanse of forest to find where the cabin once stood.
While the story unravels predictably, Tara’s strong lead performance keeps the ship floating above water. In transmitting her pain, fear, and anger through the camera lens, she delivers a knock-out turn that gives the film a bit of weight and a tremendous amount of heart. As things spiral, Tara produces the mental fragility necessary for the inevitable collapse that erupts into a cursed final 20 minutes.
In working with cinematographer Justin Sebastian, Tarasiuk produces a cleanly shot, crisp, and polished offering. It’s perhaps glossier than most found footage/mockumentary entries, resulting in wider appeal, but it’s a delicately woven mystery that scratches the itch for any diehard genre fan. Hunting Matthew Nichols doesn’t concern itself with reinventing the wheel but instead fully embraces genre conventions. It doesn’t need to be anything other than what it is: a solid entry in the mockumentary pantheon. Tune in for the cool premise and stay for the frights.
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