After premiering at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival last summer, YouTuber-turned-filmmaker Chris Stuckmann’s feature-length debut Shelby Oaks slipped quietly out of circulation. Not only did Neon purchase distribution rights to Shelby Oaks , but they also acquired the services of horror auteur Mike Flanagan ( Life of Chuck ) as an executive producer. With additional capital from thoseparties, Stuckmann reshot multiple scenes, upgraded visual/makeup effects, and otherwise polished Shelby Oaks before its theatrical rollout.
Shelby Oaks centers on two sisters, Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn) and her older sister, Mia (Camille Sullivan). The former is the long-lost and possibly dead co-host of a DIY YouTube series and the latter remains obsessed with the mystery surrounding Riley’s disappearance. Riley still exists, however, stuck in time and physically unchanged on low-res video saved onto micro-cassettes or the show’s long-dormant YouTube channel.
Co-written with Samantha Elizabeth, Stuckmann’s life partner, the script paints Mia’s significant other, Robert (Brendan Sexton III), as a genre-typical horror character. He’s the long-suffering, borderline unsympathetic spouse who is more hindrance than help. Years of supporting Mia through her obsession have left Robert superficially supportive, but ultimately unwilling to follow Mia when new evidence, courtesy of a suicidal madman, appears on her doorstep. The caller arrives with a firearm in one hand and an informative micro-cassette in another. That evidence suggests that Riley might not have perished along with her production crew in the deserted post-industrial city of the title.
That long-abandoned and overgrown city, Shelby Oaks, practically has a life of its own, albeit one wholly defined by its past. Houses lie empty, their windows covered in shadows, their wood frames rotting with mould and mildew. An amusement park echoes with the laughter and cheers of long-gone thrill-seekers. The doors of a notorious, now-closed prison that was once the site of a violent riot and fire, lie open to the eyes and ears of the curious adventurer.
The all-too-brief true-crime portion of the film includes typical talking head interviews. One of them features police detective Burke (Michael Beach), who is haunted by Riley’s disappearance and the lack of closure surrounding it. Another interviewee is Morton Jacobson (Keith David), the warden of aforementioned prison. He adds texture and context to a key site that Riley and her crew visited right before her disappearance.
Borrowing disparate, over-familiar elements from found footage films, true-crime documentaries, and straight-up narrative storytelling, Shelby Oaks often feels a compendium of horror’s greatest hits . There are familiar echoes of The Blair Witch Project , a seminal entry in found footage, to horror flicks Rosemary’s Baby , Hereditary , and Insidious . Even the most casual of horror fans can play spot-the-reference and rarely miss anything of consequence.
When Mia, obsessed to the point of self-destruction and incapable of reconciling herself to her sister’s possible fate, predictably ventures alone to Shelby Oaks one night, the unrestrained pileup of contrivances, scares, and shocks brings Stuckmann’s debut dangerously close to the edge of tedium. Cognizant that audiences expect surprises, Stuckmann takes Mia to a hellish, Barbarian -inspired underground. Cue a rapid-fire flurry of increasingly unconvincing, logic-challenged plot turns (including a tired turn involving gerontophobia), and a final, shrug-worthy shot that all but promises a sequel.
Seemingly to counterbalance its story-based stumbles and stitched-together plotting, Shelby Oaks leans heavily on Andrew Scott Baird’s near-flawless cinematography, Patrick Lawrence and Brett W. Bachman’s effective editing, and James Burkholder and the Newton Brothers’s eerie, genre-perfect score. Shelby Oaks also benefits from a solid, well-directed supporting cast and Camille Sullivan’s intense, grounded performance as Mia, driven by mystery and love to uncover Riley’s fate, up to and including risking her own life in the bargain.
