The Nightmare Comes Home

I'm not a big horror-movie guy, but, when you get invited to a premiere, you go to the premiere. That's what happened this past Thursday, when I was invited to the Park Theatre in Vancouver for the premiere of Hunting Matthew Nichols.

Some of you in the know might remember this movie coming out a couple years ago. That's true, but that was only for the festival circuit. Thursday's showing was its official release, as it prepared for distribution to over one thousand theatres across North America.

From the moment I arrived on the scene, I knew I was in for a special night. The lineup was out the door and around the corner. I had to wait in the rain, but that's nothing new for this Vancouverite.

The Park was decked out for the premiere. There was a photo op with a big display of the film's title. There were "Missing" posters plastered on all the walls. Commemorative popcorn buckets were handed out. Even some of the props from the movie, like a handheld camera and an animal-skull totem, were on display.

All of this created a pretty exclusive vibe, but a movie is nothing without its audience. Luckily, the theatre was packed. The director, producers and stars were all in attendance, along with their friends and family. It was clear that a lot of the people in the theatre had some sort of personal connection to the film and its crew. That helped create an engaging energy. I could tell that people wanted to like this movie.

Hunting Matthew Nichols is an indie horror set on Vancouver Island. Its local vibe made The Park an ideal spot for a premiere. As a guy who spent years living on Vancouver Island, this film felt like a personal experience. One of the very first shots is on a BC Ferry — if you know, you know. Maybe it's because I'm not used to seeing these local spaces up on the big screen, but the ferry shot put a big smile on my face. It made me feel like I was watching a film made by a close friend, even though I'd never met the director.

Most movies shot in Vancouver aren't actually set in Vancouver. The same goes with Vancouver Island. It was nice that Hunting stayed true to its roots and chose to actually set its film where it was shot, even if they created a fictional town to hold the events in.

The titular Matthew Nichols is a teenager who went missing in the early 2000s after he and his friend were inspired by The Blair Witch Project to make a scary found-footage movie. They went out into the forest on Halloween night and were never seen again. Not much is told to us about Matthew, other than his love for filmmaking. He is kept an enigmatic figure, while most of our sympathy is drawn to his sister, Tara, who is leading the search for her long-lost brother.

The parallels between Blair Witch and Hunting go deeper than just inspiring a character's actions. This film is also shot in a found-footage, mockumentary style, making it hard to decipher what is real and what is fiction. This includes direct-to-the-camera interviews and scenes that we're supposed to believe aren't meant to be filmed. If you like horror mockumentaries, then Hunting is right up your (nightmare) alley.

I must admit that attending the premiere lessened my belief in this film's trueness. Before the movie started, the director, who also plays himself in the film, went on stage and gave a big thank you to everyone. This hindered the believability of the director actually experiencing these things, if that makes sense. It'd be like going to the Blair Witch premiere and having Heather and Josh there to thank you for attending. It's not that I was going to believe this was a real documentary — I ain't afraid of no ghosts — but seeing the director out of character hindered the film's believability.

The director does want to maintain the film's believability, though. That's clear not just from the movie's content, but also from its online marketing.

As I mentioned, this is an indie production. With the wider release they're embarking on, creating intrigue is vital to making the movie a success. Taking a page out of the playbook of studios like A24, Hunting has put a bunch of different things online that are supposed to foster your curiosity.

On the movie's official website, there is an online scavenger hunt you can play. There's loads of footage to go through to discover clues. If you finish it all, you win a prize. I'm still working through the game.

Additionally, the production set up a full website for the fictional town of Port Rupert. This website comes complete with a petition to stop the distribution of Hunting because the film "is inconsistent with the values, priorities, and public interest of Port Rupert." You can even sign a petition to stop the film from being shown. Yes, I signed it. Let's hope that doesn't put me on some bizarre mailing list.

The unnecessary details of the Port Rupert website reflects the surprisingly comedic tone of the film. It is a horror, but it also had me cackling more often than I expected. For most of the film, we follow the director and Matthew Nichols's sister as they try to put together clues. References to The Office, goofy banter, jokes about the difficulties of filmmaking, all add to the likeability of the characters. This likeability makes the film much more digestible, as we wait for the inevitable, frightening finale.

It also helps that the film is beautifully shot. Although this is a found-footage, mockumentary film heavily indebted to Blair Witch, it seems that what budget they had they spent on cameras. The film looked gorgeous on the big screen, and I applaud them for choosing to make the film look good, while still trying to create this real, lived-in vibe.

I've written about this before in my Cat People article. One of the best things a filmmaker can do when making a horror on the cheap is to let the audience's mind create the scary scenes without actually showing anything on screen. This saves on production costs. Hunting uses this tactic expertly.

At one point, the director and Matthew's sister get a clue that could significantly help the case, but the film still leaves it up to the audience's imagination. We see the characters watching the clue, and we hear the characters talk about what the clue could mean, but we never see the clue (well, almost never). This is effective because it creates intrigue within the audience while allowing the filmmaker to keep his costs down. Intelligent filmmaking at work.

When the time finally comes for Hunting to deliver on its promise of blood-chilling horrors, it does deliver. With the film's short runtime, the wait doesn't feel tedious. The final sequence of this movie is freaky as hell. The audience at the premiere were shook. I can't get into the details without spoiling the film, but you'll just have to trust me that the frightening payoff is well worth the wait.

Although this is an indie movie, I applaud the filmmaker and the producers for taking the shot at a wide release. I hope a lot of people go watch Hunting Matthew Nichols. It's a short but sharp film, and it's always nice to see local filmmakers win. If you can, go support it!

Hunting Matthew Nichols2024