Readers, tread lightly on all Shelby Oaks reviews by movie reviewers. We have a vested interest in seeing this one work, because the writer/director, Chris Stuckmann, well, is…one of us! The YouTube reviewer ascends to a higher plane only us plebs can dream about. Here’s hoping my review threads the needle, and is neither too jealous or too praiseworthy of that douchebag derivative beacon of light to modern cinema. See! Right down the middle.
What happened to Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn)? Brennan is one of the 4 stars of the YouTube (nice Chris) show Paranormal Paranoids, along with David (Eric Francis Melaragni), Peter (Anthony Baldasare), and Laura (Caisey Cole). Any thoughts of them faking their work go away when the quad visits the ghost town Shelby Oaks, leading to their disappearances. Most people assume the worst, except Mia (Camille Sullivan), who’s convinced Riley is still alive, especially after a psycho comes on her doorstep and leaves a mysterious tape from that lost camera the police never found in Shelby Oaks.
Stuckmann’s passion project encompasses everything you can expect from a movie made by a movie reviewer. Let’s start with the good. If you’ve watched all sorts of horror movies, good and bad, you probably get a feeling for how to stage a good scare right? That’s the best thing Shelby Oaks has going for it. There’s 3 to 4 excellent jump scares in here. Some come suddenly with those discordant violins. But his best are slow burns, channeling sequences from Blair Witch, and some modern twists like scary YouTube videos. He even has a penchant for a creepy character or two, discovering Robin Bartlett, who will unnerve you the minute you see her.
But when you’ve been admiring movies for over a decade, and never made a movie until now, the imposter syndrome can rear its ugly head. Shelby Oaks feels at times like Stuckmann wanted to take pieces of his favorite horror tropes he’s seen over the years and put them ALL into his film: found footage, supernatural entities, female/baby trauma, strange symbols in nature, creepy abandoned buildings, an unassuming sinister character, a trusted actor playing a warning prophet (Keith David), and many more. To stitch all of them together, Stuckmann engineering a LOT of plot mechanics, most of witch don’t make sense if you think about them even a little. For all his love of films, poor Chris got so wrapped up in his passion project he forgot the number one rule of moviemaking: the story comes first, which he forgets time and time again to conjure his next scare.
But thankfully, I see the potential. Chris could do this if he wanted. Or maybe I’m delusional, trying to will this ascent into being to satisfy my own feelings of inadequacy? Hey doc, we got a whole new bag of issues, we can put mom away for a while.