Popular YouTuber and film critic Chris Stuckmann makes his directorial debut with the feature film Shelby Oaks, produced by Neon. Stuckmann also wrote the screenplay, based on a story he developed with Samantha Elizabeth.
The film opens in 2008 with a found footage angle, introducing us to Riley (Sarah Durn) and her three friends, who run a popular YouTube channel called “Paranormal Paranoids.” After spending the night in the town of Shelby Oaks, everyone disappears. While the bodies of Riley’s three friends are found, it appears that Riley has vanished.
The narrative then jumps ahead twelve years, where Riley’s older sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) refuses to believe that her sister disappeared and continues to do press to keep the story alive. One day, a mysterious man named Wilson Miles (Charlie Talbert) shows up at Mia’s house and commits suicide in front of her, all while holding a VHS tape.
Naturally, Mia watches the tape and learns that Wilson may have played a part in her sister’s disappearance. Against the wishes of her bumbling husband (Brendan Sexton III), Mia embarks on an investigation into the history of Shelby Oaks, where she uncovers a haunted past that includes a supernatural evil.
While I have never been a big fan of the horror subgenre of found footage, Stuckmann does try something different, and this angle works well as a prologue. However, once the film transitions to a traditional narrative format, it loses momentum. Camille Sullivan does her best to elevate the thinly written material. Still, her dialogue often feels forced, causing the film to succumb to a cluster of clichés typical of other horror films.
One of the most disappointing aspects of the film is the underutilization of the usually reliable actors Michael Beach and Keith David, who appear for brief cameos before fading away. As for Brendan Sexton III, the film could have cast any actor in his role, as his character is largely inconsequential.
Stuckmann attempts to salvage the film in the third act by introducing an elderly hermit woman (Robin Bartlett) to the story, but yet again, he rehashes plot points from other horror films. Stuckmann clearly has a love for the genre, and perhaps the better route to go would have been to solely focus on Riley’s story as a short and then work with Flanagan to flesh out Mia’s story for a full-on feature.
While I don’t follow Chris Stuckmann’s reviews, I commend him for successfully using Kickstarter to fund Shelby Oaks, making it one of the biggest crowdfunding successes for a horror feature to date. Given Stuckmann’s popularity online and with Mike Flanagan coming on board as a producer, I had moderate expectations for the film. Unfortunately, those expectations were not met.
Shelby Oaks opens in theaters October 24th via NEON.
