Publication Date: 04-07-2026

Hunting Matthew Nichols (2026) review

Dir. Markian Tarasiuk

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★

I’m a sucker for a movie that tries to play the viral game and craft its own lore via a website. It’s a marketing strategy, above all, but at its best, it added an additional layer of mystery to films like Vacancy, and most recently, Longlegs. Consider Hunting Matthew Nichols—stop: read that title again, carefully. It’s “Hunting,” not “Haunting,” which already inspires intrigue. Alas, DeVuono Releasing’s efforts to create a buzzy marketing campaign for the film come across as a last-ditch effort to salvage a repetitive, slowburn faux-documentary, the likes of which would blend right in with daytime programming on networks like Investigation Discovery.

The film involves Tara Nichols (Miranda MacDougall) searching for her brother Matthew and his friend, Jordan Reimer, who went missing in Vancouver Island’s Black Bear Woods in 2001. More than 23 years have passed, but now Miranda and her friend, Markian Tarasiuk (also director and cowriter) are old and well-funded enough to pull-off an investigation themselves. Thanks to the release of new evidence, Tara has a better handle on the case.

Tara’s parsing of files suggests that Matthew and Jordan had become obsessed with an urban legend regarding a settler who ate his family and became involved in Satanic rituals. Of course, even in the early aughts, the pals were a couple of amateur video-makers, so grainy VHS tapes of their home movies still exists. The two were also obsessed with The Blair Witch Project which, while not a very necessary nor compelling plot-point, feels like writers Tarasiuk and Sean Harris Oliver getting out in front of the inevitable comparisons.

Hunting Matthew Nichols has already been incorrectly billed as a “found footage” documentary. It is not. While the third act adheres to that style of filmmaking — video positioned as being shot by characters and alluding to the fact that the footage was discovered later in time — Tarasiuk’s approach is full-blown documentary. At only 89 minutes long, much of the film is conducted like conventional nonfiction, featuring extended on-camera interviews with local investigators and even Jordan’s father. This conservative, authentic approach is admirable, yet not entertaining, for the threadbare story, ho-hum visuals, and lack of engaging performers fails to engage us.

Consider Strange Harvest, another faux documentary regarding the multi-decade killing spree of a serial madman known as Mr. Shiny. While its graphic nature, particularly in the detailed footage of its crime scene, gave it the aura of legitimacy, it was anchored by a standout lead performance from Peter Zizzo as an unconventionally emotional detective. The story was not only a truly compelling mystery, but elements on the periphery, including the performers, worked to legitimize the entire production.

Hunting Matthew Nichols simply doesn’t have the narrative nor structural gravitas to engage like it should. It’s convincingly filmed, but drearily dull. The film picks up steam in the second act thanks to a confrontation between Tara and a police investigator initially assigned to Matthew and Jordan’s case back in 2001, but that only goes so far when the third act descends into leaden, interchangeable found footage conventions involving individuals being scared by noises coming from off-screen. Given how flimsy this is, it would take a Wiki site to prop up Hunting Matthew Nichols to be memorable.

Starring: Miranda MacDougall, Markian Tarasiuk, and Ryan Alexander McDonald. Directed by: Markian Tarasiuk.