While horror fans love actions in front of the camera to be as harrowing and traumatising as possible, the reverse is also true when it comes to them enjoying an uplifting story behind it. Nothing energises a fright fan more than some punk kid coming from nowhere to realise their dream of crafting a horror film from next to nothing and following in the footsteps of other can-do legends and the story of Chris Stuckmann and Shelby Oaks is an absolute doozy.
Essentially crowdfunded via Kickstarter, which saw the project become the most funded horror film on the platform, after a screening in 2024, it was taken under the wing of none other than Mike Flanagan which meant more funds were added to resort and re-edit the film in order to release to the masses. Yessiree, it’s a filmmaking story worthy of a horror tinged fairytale and no mistake, but there’s still one, glaring and very important question to ask: has all this actually resulted in a good film?
Back in 2008, a quartet of avid, ghost hunting YouTubers calling themselves the Paranormal Paranoids garnered the wrong kind of internet fame when they disappeared after visiting an abandoned prison in the deserted ghost town known as Shelby Oaks. While the internet was split on whether this was a fat, juicy mystery to pour over, or it was just another, elaborate, viral prank, matters got infinitely more serious when three of the four Paranormal Paranoids turn up dead and a camera shows up containing the last known images of their still missing fourth member, Riley Brennan.
We soon discover that the documentary we’re watching is actually still in the midst of filming and we’re actually seeing Riley’s sister, Mia, being interviewed twelve years after her disappearance; however, the plot thickens when a stranger calls at her door and after a traumatic event, Mia finds a vital clue: the missing video cassette from the other camera the Paranoids were using. On the footage she finds new footage of what actually happened to the other three kids and evidence that Riley could be alive, but as her renewed hope for her sister gears up, it not only put more of a strain on her already shaky marriage, it stirs up creepy memories of her childhood.
Taking it upon herself to play lone investigator, Mia keeps all of her discoveries to herself and heads over to Shelby Oaks alone to crack the mystery once and for all (girl, investigate in the daytime, what’s wrong with you?). However, it isn’t long before the same, bizarre visions that Riley used to have as a child start plaguing her as well as she continuously spies a figure in the woods watching her with glowing eyes. Did something supernatural befall Riley or is there a rational explanation for the things that Mia is experiencing? All will be explained in Shelby Oaks.
When there’s a story of a plucky filmmaker defying the odds and achieving their dream of making a movie, there’s a temptation to treat the movie with kid’s gloves purely to show support. However on the other hand, if you’ve managed to finance a film with donations from people on Kickstarter, I suppose you’d better not disappoint them by delivering a sub-par entry into the horror pantheon, so it’s probably best to enter Shelby Oaks without the story of its creation hanging over the experience. To call it down the middle, Stuckmann has delivered a film that manages to deliver something of an admittedly tense experience, but he hasn’t exactly crafted that you’d call an overly memorable one. The issue is familiarity as Stuckmann has liberally borrowed from a whole host of recognisable horror titles that certainly help him get the job done and while other recent titles have done the same (you could argue both Smile movies are just ramped up versions of The Ring), at least they’ve tried to cover their tracks by putting their own spin on it.
Obviously, the found footage beginning reeks heavily of the mack daddy of all handheld horrors: The Blair Witch Project; but the faux-documentary format actually feels more like the lesser known film, The Last Broadcast. However, once the movie has used it to set everything up nicely with a fairly hefty side-order of dread, we switch to more conventional filmmaking that sees Stuckmann start pilfering bits from everything he can including Silent Hill (puzzle solving in an abandoned town), Hereditary (shadowy figures standing just out of our sight) and even a sizable chunk of Rosemary’s Baby just for good measure. The result is a film that instantly feels overly familiar and an overreliance of jump scares means that you’re only really scared because waiting for the scary bits proves to be scarier than the actual scary bits.
You know a jumpscare is coming because literally everything in the scene is telling you that it’s coming and so your anus puckers up accordingly. However, when the jump scare happens (usually a reveal that something’s been lurking somewhere in the background) you find you’re not drowning in the amounts of dread you should be. It’s definitely unsettling – I’ll give it that. You can’t have scenes of a people reacting in abject horror to something just out of view and not be a little creeped out, but if I’m truly being honest, I’d kind of figured out the twist the second the final reel started which kind of diffused any lingering scares.
Maybe if Shelby Oaks had been released in a period where the vast majority of major horror releases hasn’t been impressively innovative, it’s more modest scares would have carried it over in a nice, throwback sort of way, but anyone wanting more from their horror than the ability to spill popcorn may feel matters are a bit lacking.
Personally, I can excuse the fact the Stuckmann also uses multiple, typical tropes to move his plot along such as Camille Sullivan’s Mia having something of a fluctuating IQ when it comes to her own sense of self preservation. Maybe the filmmakers were trying to channel the desperate and frenzied quest for knowledge seen in The Vanishing, but as film goes on and it becomes apparent that she’s getting possibly getting hearded by forces unknown, it’s tough not to get frustrated with her ludicrously risky efforts.
While Shelby Oaks is perfectly serviceable horror film that contains some genuinely creepy moments, I’m guessing “perfectly serviceable” isn’t exactly what you be looking for if you’d paid into that Kickstarter fund. Even though jump scare fanatics may find themselves nicely sated, those looking for something deeper will probably find that Stuckmann borrows more than he innovates.
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