B.C.-filmed Hunting Matthew Nichols toys with true-crime documentaries, opening April 10
Creepy trip into the West Coast woods has been earning praise for its fresh spin on the horror genre
Tara MacDougall in Hunting Matthew Nichols.
Hunting Matthew Nichols runs April 10, 11, 14, and 16 at the Park Theatre, with screenings at Cineplex and SilverCity locations outside Vancouver
ONE OF THE BEST horror movies to come out of B.C. is finally seeing its wide theatrical release this weekend—and it draws stylistically from true-crime documentaries. And that gives it an eerie, nagging feeling that it’s real—even when you tell yourself it isn’t.
When the film premiered at the Whistler Film Festival a few years back, screenwriter and producer Sean Harris Oliver (who’s also a well-known Vancouver theatre artist) told Stir, “Sometimes when I get out of a screening, I'll have some people go, ‘But is that based on a true story? Was it based on someone that went missing?’”
Director Markian Tarasiuk weaves in a found-footage element that gives Hunting Matthew Nichols a distinctive Blair Witch Project vibe, while the story benefits hugely from its creepy Vancouver Island woods setting.
It tells the story of a sister searching for a brother and his friend who disappeared. They were amateur filmmakers who had a camcorder and left a stack of VHS tapes when they went missing 20 years ago. But when a lost video emerges that has deeply unsettling new evidence, sister Tara Nichols (a thoroughly convincing Tara MacDougall) embarks on a quest to solve what happened, weighing in with direct-address “interviews” throughout the film.
Throw in artful redramatizations and a haunting animated sequence that traces the origins of a local myth that Matt and Jordan became obsessed with, and you have genuine chills. Celebrated director Steven Soderbergh is even a fan, calling it “a sneaky, simmering take on the true crime folk horror genre that boils over and becomes truly unnerving". At the very least, it will be enough to give you pause the next time you head into the West Coast woods. 
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