Join The Hunt For Matthew Nichols

Two decades after her brother mysteriously disappeared on Vancouver Island, a documentary filmmaker sets out to solve his missing person's case. When a disturbing piece of evidence is revealed, she comes to believe he might still be alive.

As a fan of folk horror, I like the look of this, but the trailer gives me the impression that the filmmakers have either never seen or heard of The Blair Witch Project or have watched it way too much.

The film does come with a really neat interactive website that looks like a real timesink (again, rather Blair Witchy).

Hunting Matthew Nichols is on target to open in US cinemas on April 10.

Join The Creepers on Their Most Dangerous Expedition

The Creepers are thrill-seeking urban explorers who love pushing things to the edge, and their latest stunt – livestreaming from New Jersey’s abandoned Paragon Hotel – is their biggest yet.

With its mobster past, supposed ghosts, and rumoured stash of $300 million, the Paragon is catnip to the Creepers, a sure-fire way to increase their fanbase.

But fear has other plans. Daring to enter the Paragon, not heeding the warnings, the Creepers fend off deadly rivals while supernatural creatures stalk them from the shadows, testing their endurance, sanity, and willingness to pay fame’s heavy price.

Based on the 2005 book Creepers by David Morrell (the creator of Rambo in his 1972 novel, First Blood), Do Not Enter is directed by renowned music video director Marc Klasfeld and I have to give him major kudos for NOT shooting this movie as "found footage".

This great-looking exploration horror is getting a limited cinema release in the States from March 20.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Atticus Institute (2015)

The Atticus Institute is a mock documentary about a 1970s Pennsylvania research lab investigating fringe science, paranormal abilities, telekinesis etc.

Although they have a modicum of success there is nothing quantifiable that would stand up as solid proof of these supernatural abilities actually existing until a woman called Judith Winstead (Rya Kihlstedt) is introduced to the scientists by her sister (who promptly abandons her, disconnects her phone and severs all ties with her sibling).

Judith is odd, but right off the bat demonstrates to the institute's head Dr Henry West (William Mapother) a range of unnerving abilities.

Eventually, as her abilities escalate, it's clear that Judith's powers are beyond the control of the institute and one of their number calls in the military and the US Government, who take over the experiments and push Judith even harder.

The more extreme the tests get, the more extreme the results are.

And then when the government realises they are dealing with a true case of possession they decide the best thing to do is attempt to "weaponise" the demonic entity.

Naturally, that all goes according to plan...

This isn't a found footage film, it sidesteps that damnable fad by being essentially a montage of short clips, stills and interviews - using faux footage and snapshots from the 1970s, intercut with present-day talking head interviews with those connected to the events.

The Atticus Institue is a little gem, sharing some thematic - and stylistic - elements with the BBC's superb Ghostwatch from 1992, that writer/director Chris Sparling has crafted so that (in his own words from the 'behind-the-scenes' extras) people switching channels on TV and finding the film already playing will think it a genuine documentary.

The only thing that slightly undercuts that ambition is the use of, to me anyway, recognisable faces like Lost's William Mapother, Harry Groener, and John Rubinstein.

Given the verisimilitude that Sparling has created for this film, unsurprisingly - but bravely - The Atticus Institute doesn't offer any clear answers, rather it poses a lot of questions about what we are watching and who is really controlling the unfolding events.

It is also paced like a documentary - even though it opens with a tantalising tease of the horrors to come - and so demands attention from its audience.

Although there are a handful of jump scares, the film works best on a psychological level, challenging the viewer to think about how governments would react if possession - and other such horror movie fodder - were genuine.

A unique, powerful, clever and inventive horror film, if you give it the respect it deserves The Atticus Institute will worm its way into your brain and hang around for a good while.

Banshee Chapter (2013)

Given that it overtly references two of my favourite authors (HP Lovecraft and Hunter S Thompson), I really should have liked Banshee Chapter more than I did.

It's one of those frustrating little works that's so close to being worthy of being called a "cult classic", but falls just short in the final reckoning.

Journalist Anne Roland (Katia Winter aka Katrina Crane in Sleepy Hollow) is investigating the disappearance of her old university sweetheart James Hirsch (Michael McMillian aka Steve Newlin in True Blood), who had been looking into the drugs used by the CIA in the infamous MKUltra "mind control" experiments.

Her quest eventually leads her, via the ever-intriguing phenomena of "numbers stations", to gonzo journalist Thomas Blackburn (Ted Levine aka Buffalo Bill from Silence Of The Lambs), who invites her to try some 'mind-altering drugs' with him and his 'pharmacist', Callie (Jenny Gabrielle).

Weird shit goes down at their 'party', prompting Anne and Blackburn to pay a visit to Callie's house. There they discover she has learned the location of the secret bunker where the MKUltra experiments were performed.

And so they head out into the desert to explore the long-abandoned bunker. In the middle of the night...

A blend of 'found footage' with proper movie making, Banshee Chapter manages to keep the balance right, and blends in enough 'genuine' conspiracy theory to pique my interest, especially when they hammer home - by directly referencing - the fact that this story is a contemporary twist on HP Lovecraft's From Beyond (famously made into Stuart Gordon's glorious movie of the same name).

The documentary footage that splices in to Anne's narrative reminded me of The Atticus Institute, and as James attends the mythical 'Atticus University', I wonder if I'm missing some hidden link here beyond the thematic.

Aided by some solid special effects, the horror of Banshee Chapter comes in a mix of cheap jump scares and some genuinely creepy, atmospheric work, but where the film seriously stumbles is with Ted Levine's character, Thomas Blackburn.

He's such an obvious clone of Hunter S Thompson (particularly the gonzo author's Raoul Duke persona as seen in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas) that it isn't funny. It simply jars, shattering the verisimilitude the filmmakers were craving.

I know the film tries to justify this in its denouement, but really more originality should have been put into such a key character so that we aren't constantly thinking "but that's Hunter S Thompson".

The Borderlands (2013)

I am my own worst enemy. Despite frequently voicing my dislike of found footage films, I still picked up British horror flick The Borderlands because it featured an actor I'd heard of before (a rarity in most no-budget found footage films).

Gordon Kennedy (from Robin Hood and countless other British TV shows) is Deacon, a member of a team of investigators from the Vatican who investigate claims of miracles. In this case they are sent to an old, but recently reopened, church in the West Country where the young village priest, Father Crellick (Luke Neal) is making claims of supernatural activity.

Deacon has been saddled with non-religious technical assistant, Gray (Robin Hill), who starts off as the single most obnoxious and annoying character you could imagine, but by the end of the film transforms into an almost sympathetic character.

The film suffers from many of the usual faults of the found footage genre, with the most insulting being the belief that it doesn't need to explain what's happening because "that's just what was shown on the film".

Quite early on there's an implied animal cruelty sequence that nearly made me turn the film off in disgust - not that you see anything, but the sounds are revolting. I'm glad I stuck with it, especially as this barbaric act by the local hooligans turns out to be a red herring that the film could have done without.

But it does demonstrate the importance of audio in the story. Much of what follows is a lot less on-the-nose.

As Deacon's investigations progress, there are strong hints about a backstory to what is occurring and dark practices that have gone on at the site in the past, but the climax of the piece, while a visual thrill ride, doesn't tell us anywhere near enough to figure out what it is we are supposed to be seeing.

Sadly, this isn't the only weakness in The Borderlands. For example, there is no rational explanation for why - after a shocking suicide - Deacon returns to the church to further his investigations... in the middle of the night!

Then, when Deacon's mentor, Father Calvino (Patrick Godfrey), is flown in to assist our heroes,  they again, return to the church - which appears to have no working lights - as the sun is setting.

Ultimately, the found footage/shaky-cam gimmick is a hindrance to the story writer/director Elliot Goldner is trying to tell. I strongly believe that if this story had been shot as a straight horror movie it could have been another worthy addition to the canon of unnerving British rural horror.

But as it stands, the only real shocks come from a couple of cheap jump scares, which undermine the moments of actual tension and some of the subtler attempts to send chills down the spine of attentive audience members.

There's clearly a bigger story here than we are shown - particularly the influence that whatever is under the church is having on the nearby village - but it's only ever hinted at when it should have been brought to the forefront.

Cloverfield (2008)

My expectations were low going into Cloverfield. Could a monster movie shot entirely from the point-of-view of the people on the ground, on a handheld digital camera, really hold my interest for 85-minutes without giving me motion sickness from all the shaky camera work... and would it really be that good?

Well, for the first three-quarters of the film, it lived up to its hype.

The story kicks off at the leaving party for yuppie Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and unfolds, for about the first 10 or 15 minutes, like a soap opera episode as characters are sketched out and emotional sub-plots revealed amidst the banter and camaraderie.

Then suddenly the monster arrives in Manhattan and things start blowing up, people panic and mayhem ensues.

The combination of Drew Goddard's naturalistic script, Matt Reeves' fine direction and totally convincing performances from the cast of unknowns give Cloverfield an incredible verisimilitude that you really believe this is how ordinary people would behave if a monster attacked New York!

There are no scenes of military commanders spouting exposition or the President reacting to the emergency; we are given no explanations and only fleeting glimpses of the giant, mutant-Godzilla monster itself... we, the audience, only ever know as much as the man holding the camera.

The important thing to remember about Rob and his pals as protagonists is that are nothing special - the monster isn't targeting them specifically and they play no role in the possible downfall of of the creature either - they are just the everyman-on-the-street... who happens to have a camcorder.

Sure, it's a YouTube version of The Blair Witch Project on a big budget, but, here the action is more visceral and less psychological, here you know there's really a big damn monster because its knocked the head off the Statue of Liberty and is stomping its way round the city... dropping off little skittering critters along the way!

Then, with about 20 minutes left, and coming on the heels of incredible sequences in the darkened subway tunnels under the city and in an emergency military hospital, the film goes all Hollywood blockbuster.

The protagonists find themselves scrambling around inside collapsing tower blocks and surviving helicopter crashes; the believability factor is stretched a bit too much and our total immersion in the story wavers.

Also, seeing the monster in daylight, as we do towards the climax, however, briefly, still shows it to be a big CGI creature that wouldn't have looked out of place in Men In Black.

As an experiment in making a different sort of monster movie, Cloverfield is a roaring success, a mix of thrills and chills that just went too far at the end, possibly - and ironically - giving the audience too much of what they were used to and not sticking to its original conceit.

[REC] 4: Apocalypse (2014)

Picking up the action from the end of [REC] 2 - itself a continuation of the original [REC] - [REC] 4: Apocalypse opens with a small military unit entering the quarantined Barcelona tower block, with the aim of blowing it up.

However, they find the sole survivor, elfin TV news reporter Ángela Vidal (the absolutely gorgeous Manuela Velasco).

Ángela awakens in a medical facility, that is very quickly revealed to be (as we all knew anyway), a ship that has been commandeered by the authorities as a floating laboratory to try and find a cure for the virus.

As well as the two surviving soldiers from her rescue, Ángela also finds on board the last survivor of the wedding party seen in [REC] 3 - Genesis, a confused old lady (María Alfonsa Rosso) completely oblivious to what went down at the wedding.

Naturally, things very quickly fall apart as a viral test subject escapes (is set free?), food becomes infected and in no time at all everything goes to hell in a very bloody hand-basket and the uninfected find themselves trapped on the claustrophobic ship as it heads into a violent storm.

Rather than aping other zombie flicks, [REC] 4 takes its inspiration from the Aliens franchise (a comparison I also made in my review of [REC] 2) and is all the better for continuing to put a fresh spin on the zombie genre.

The found footage/POV camera gimmick from the earlier entries in this series has been abandoned, but that idea still plays a key part in the story, with Ángela's footage from the tower block providing an important clue as to what is going on and frequent references to the ship's internal security cameras illustrating the spread of the chaos and carnage.

As well as the evidence from Ángela's camera, the newspaper clippings seen in the first movie are also referenced, tying that sub-plot in nicely.

However, this is where the film rather falters, although lip service is paid to the "demonic" angle of the infection, nothing is really done with it as the explanation for the virus reverts to a more mainstream one as the scientists on the ship discover it is a host-hopping parasite.

While this is handled well, it was the supernatural twist in the first three movies that gave the [REC] zombies a special flavour.

Getting rid of this angle was a serious mistake as it reduces [REC] 4 to the level of "just another zombie flick" (with its primary uniqueness coming from its setting), which the previous movies most definitely weren't.

Although, [REC] 4: Apocalypse has been set up as the conclusion of the franchise - and it provides a decent enough wrap-up to the most consistently strong zombie film series to date - it does leave the door open for a new episode on a grander scale.

And I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing more of Manuela Velasco's Ángela Vidalin action...

Quarantine (2008)

The chances are if you have similar tastes to mine you will have heard of the Spanish alt-zombie, shaky-cam, found footage, horror flick [REC] - well, Quarantine is the American remake for those who don't do subtitles.

While not a shot-for-shot remake, Quarantine is very, very similar to the original - even down to the look of the quarantined apartment building.

The lovely Jennifer Carpenter, from Dexter, replaces the elfin Manuela Velasco, as the TV journalist doing a "ride-along" piece with the Los Angeles fire brigade when they are called to a block where an elderly resident is apparently in trouble in her room.

When the police and fire brigade force their way in, the crazy old woman attacks them and things very rapidly go to Hell in an oversized handbasket.

The reporter, and her mostly-unseen cameraman, find themselves trapped inside the building with an assortment of residents - including Alan Harper's wife from Two And A Half Men (Marin Hinkle), the burnt guy from American Horror Story (Denis O'Hare) and Fish from Ally McBeal (Greg Germann) - some of whom are manifesting signs of a kind of super-rabies!

Quarantine, while sticking close to the visceral template established in [REC], appears to be playing down the supernatural left turn in the third act, yet remains uncertain as to which way it wants to take things as it heads towards the now infamous final shot (which is also, rather bizarrely, the DVD cover) that was so effective in [REC] that it has has become a cliché in lazy horror movie making.

So, yes, Quarantine is excellent fun, but mainly because [REC] was so good in the first place. I guess the makers of Quarantine should, at least, be applauded for not screwing up the material they were handed - which makes a change!

Both films, ultimately, are so similar that it really comes down to the mood you are in when choosing which to watch - Spanish or American?