Dir. Markian Tarasiuk · 2024 · 89 min · on Shudder from 31 October
On Halloween night in 2001, two teenagers, Matthew Nichols and his friend Jordan Reimer, walked into the woods of Vancouver Island and did not come back. The police have a theory. Matthew's younger sister Tara (Miranda MacDougall) has never accepted it, and decades later she recruits documentary filmmaker Markian Tarasiuk, who plays himself, to film her search for what really happened. Matthew was obsessed with The Blair Witch Project, and the reviews say that obsession becomes part of the story. Tarasiuk wrote the film with Sean Harris Oliver and makes his feature directing debut.
The first half is the part critics love. It is built to look like a true-crime documentary: talking heads, home video, recreated footage and the fade-to-black cliffhangers that streaming series use to keep you pressing "next". The Movie Waffler says the early scenes could pass for the real thing, and That Shelf agrees the opening act convincingly imitates the true-crime shows it borrows from. Both single out the supporting cast, especially Susinn McFarlen as Matthew's mother and, for The Movie Waffler, Christine Willes as the lead investigator.
It is also a film made with very little. Per its Wikipedia entry, it shot for 12 days on Vancouver Island on a budget of about $275,000, and won Best Found Footage Feature at FilmQuest in 2024. Dread Central's Chad Collins is the warmest voice, praising its nostalgia for the found-footage boom of the late 2000s and scares that do not simply copy earlier films.
The same critics who admire the opening cool on what follows. The horror is held back for the last stretch, and once the story goes into the woods The Movie Waffler finds it something of an anti-climax. That Shelf says the later acts feel staged, more like a narrative feature than a documentary, and that the film's many nods to The Blair Witch Project invite a comparison it does not win. Both also find the lead performance less convincing than the supporting cast. Certified Forgotten's Matthew Monagle says the supernatural material draws attention to the editing and weakens the immersion.
"a high floor, low ceiling exercise in genre"
Matthew Monagle, Certified Forgotten
The range is wide. Dread Central gives it 4.5 and calls it a sleeper hit, Certified Forgotten gives it 3 out of 5, and That Shelf calls it a disappointment with a few lingering images. That spread is why it lands in the middle here: an unusually convincing first half and a patient, low-budget craft that earn real goodwill, set against a last act several critics think does not pay off the build.
Tick what applies. This is a quick gut check built from what the reviews say, not a verdict on you.
It streams on Shudder from 31 October, and played in North American cinemas earlier this year. Availability varies by country, so check that the service and the film are offered where you live.