Hunting Matthew Nichols poses as a found-footage horror mockumentary, following in the footsteps of The Blair Witch Project. While Miranda MacDougall puts on a convincing performance, the movie descends into supernatural violence with some nudity and crude language, especially in its final act.
It’s been 20 years since her brother, Matthew, vanished, and Tara wants answers.
That’s why, with the help of her friends Markian and Ryan, Tara’s returned to her old hometown of Port Rupert on Vancouver Island to make a documentary of their search.
They interview Pam, one of the lead investigators on Matthew’s case. She tells them of Matthew and his friend Jordan both vanished Halloween night. And though the case went cold long ago, Pam explains the police came up with three explanations:
That last explanation is, for now, what’s been accepted as fact. After all, the only trace the police ever found of the boys was their camcorder left behind in a cabin in the woods.
“What about the camera footage on the camcorder you found?” Tara asks.
And one can’t help but notice the awkward stutter in Pam’s voice as she explains away the question.
At one point, Tara’s mother, at peace with the loss of her son, worries her daughter might be too obsessed with finding Matthew. She endured watching her husband go through that same sort of obsession when Matthew first disappeared, and she doesn’t want Tara to destroy herself in the search. She warns that, maybe, there are simply things people aren’t meant to know.
That warning stands as a theme in the story, as others tell Tara that she should let the search be and live her life, especially when the facts start getting creepier. Many warn that, if the supernatural is at play (and, yes, it is), then Tara truly has no idea what she’s getting herself into and should leave it alone. In other words, they give her the age-old adage when it comes to supernatural happenings: Curiosity killed the cat.
Many in the town became concerned that devil worship might have been a factor in the disappearance—and the police worry that those suspicions might cause a mass panic. We see footage of Matthew and Jordan playing with a Ouija board.
A man retells the folklore myths of a variety of cannibalistic people-turned-monsters. (The Baba Yaga, the wendigo, the Yamauba and the skinwalker are all mentioned.) He explains these to set up the town’s local cannibalistic myth about a man, Roy Mackenzie, who ate those in his religious compound and turned into a monster.
A Native American man in town says he likes to believe Matthew and Jordan befriended a raven in the woods who turned them into birds so that they could all fly away together. There’s also a reference to a Native American practice of energy healing. The man tells Tara that there are things they shouldn’t speak about, lest they give those things power.
Tara discovers an animal skull totem, “like druids would use for casting spells in [Dungeons & Dragons],” she says. A man explains that some people once believed that a god lived in the sun, and he explains his main point that many beliefs are formed by cultural norms of a region.
Someone says that she prayed for guidance over what she should do. A man calls Vancouver Island “God’s country.” Tara wonders if they might be on the precipice of discovering a spiritual reality.
[Spoiler Warning] Well, the town was right to be concerned about Satanic activity, since that’s exactly what Matthew and Jordan were practicing. We watch via footage as Matthew speaks in some other language in a ritual before apparently becoming possessed or turning into a monster (it’s unclear). Other wendigo-like monsters run around the forest, too, and we hear mysterious clicking noises (reminiscent of the Smoke Monster from Lost).
Tara, obsessed with finding her brother, engages in the same ritual, which allows her to speak with some unseen entity that alleges to be Matthew, supernaturally moving a hanging pendant for yes/no questions before supernatural monsters attack.
We see a woman’s naked rear. We also see a group of other people naked, too. And we briefly catch Markian in his underwear as he gets out of bed. A depiction of the Yamauba, a monster from Japanese folklore, shows a woman with exposed breasts.
Someone tells a local myth of a man who ate others in his religious compound, and we see an animated retelling of the event as blood drips from the animated man’s mouth. We hear other folkloric tales of cannibalism turning people into supernatural monsters. Reaching a distressing point in her research, Tara walks into the water and attempts to drown herself but is rescued.
A man steps on a bear trap and limps away with it still attached.
[Spoiler Warning] Tara does eventually find a videotape shot by Matthew and Jordan. We watch the tape in quick flashback cuts, which depict Matthew attempting to commune with a demon before falling over and seizing. Then, apparently possessed, Matthew attacks Jordan by shoving his fingers in Jordan’s eye sockets and ripping open his jaw (and he apparently made sure his gruesome act was both in focus and in frame—who said monsters can’t make movies?) We see him drag the body into the night. In an earlier scene, we hear the gruesome events as others watch the tape. (At this point, we don’t see the recording itself—but we hear what’s going on.)
Tara and Markian, despite viewing that footage, decide their best move is to replicate the act. Tara cuts her palm with a blade to drop blood as an offering, and she is dragged into the night by an unseen attacker. Later, we meet her again, trembling in the forest, and her eyes begin to profusely bleed. Markian, too, gets attacked, and though he escapes, we see a mid-credits scene of him lying in a hospital bed, his bandaged face severely bloodied.
We hear the f-word roughly 35 times and the s-word around 10. We also hear “h—.” God’s name is used in vain nine times, including one instance paired with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is likewise used in vain twice.
Tara smokes a cigarette. She also mentions smoking marijuana.
None.
When The Blair Witch Project released in 1999, it took the world by storm for its (at the time) unique found-footage horror and its viral marketing techniques. Some were convinced that the movie was, essentially, a documentary—and everything we saw in it was real. Many horror movies have since used that film as inspiration.
Hunting Matthew Nichols is certainly one of them. The movie even makes a few direct references to the film—and one can’t help but notice the parallels between the two.
Still, like many found footage films, Hunting Matthew Nichols suffers from failing to answer the hardest question of that film niche: Why (and more often, how) in the world would anyone ever edit and release its contents?
Perhaps that’s why, in its final act, Hunting Matthew Nichols seemingly abandons its documentary-style concept for shots that, were someone really in such a situation, they would never even think of setting up the camera to record.
But while The Blair Witch Project largely left its content unseen, Hunting Matthew Nichols is happy to splash its bloody content for all to see. Granted, most of this occurs in the final 15 minutes of the movie, but audiences nevertheless sit through graphic violence, some nudity and crude language. (That last concern sticks with us through the whole movie.) And, lest you forget this is a horror movie, supernatural elements come into play, too.
So maybe viewers would do well to take the advice offered by most people with whom Tara speaks: leave it alone, since knowing what happened won’t be worth the cost.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
