When popular YouTube reviewer Chris Stuckmann first announced the crowdfunder for his debut feature, there were (maybe understandably) a fair amount of eye-rolls. But after the project started picking up steam, breaking Kickstarter records (raising nearly $1.4 million in under a month), adding names like Mike Flanagan to the mix in producer roles, and signing a hefty distribution deal with industry icon Neon, the story of Shelby Oaks took a very different turn.
Suddenly, it felt like a real indie success story; the little horror that could. The only thing left for the film to do was actually be good. And it’s safe to say, now that we’ve actually seen it, that Stuckmann and his team have happily crossed that milestone too.
Not only is this a commercially savvy horror that plays with a lot of the most celebrated elements of a number of sub-genres (which we won’t necessarily go into here, for fear of spoilers), but Shelby Oaks is hands down just a very exciting debut too. Pacy, clever, and most importantly, creepy as all hell.
What begins as a Blair Witch-esque faux documentary surrounding the disappearance of a team of paranormal investigators (who are very aptly, also OG-era YouTubers like Stuckmann himself), soon twists and turns in on itself over and over. Not just changing gears, but form too, and very much committing itself to righting the wrongs of similarly pitched horrors of the past. Put simply – stuff actually happens in Shelby Oaks. A lot, at a very intense pace, managing to fold in eerie locations, unsettling supernatural question marks and a genuinely compelling mystery, while rarely leaning too hard on well-worn gimmickry.
With that said, Stuckmann’s film doesn’t land as completely unforced. It’s easy to look at what’s here as a bit of a smorgasbord of 21st-century horror tropes; a hefty dollop of James Wan here, a little Hereditary there, peppered with some very unambiguous nods to Shyamalan and several well-worn found footage gems. The language this team are playing with is certainly nothing new, and even the mystery itself feels like it was ripped straight from any number of popular horror games. But that’s not to say that any of this is ever particularly distracting, or even really unexpected.
Horror after all is very happily built on generations of copy-and-pasted spookiness. When something new disrupts, it usually does so by subverting what’s expected, rather than running away with something entirely of its own making. Particularly in the world of commercial horror, mimicry isn’t only accepted, it’s encouraged, as long as it’s done well. And someone as cine-literate as Stuckmann (as well as the many collaborators he surrounds himself with here) certainly knows exactly which buttons to press, and which to change-up.
Because Shelby Oaks is different where it matters. The attention to detail for one thing, is something that really benefits the film’s uneasy, anything-can-happen tone. Crossing between grainy found footage, a sharply-cut documentary narrative and something much more glossy, there’s a real eye for laying breadcrumbs to the central mystery in everything from old family photos, to careful cinematic framing and sound mixing. Camille Sullivan – as the film’s familiar, but wonderfully ballsy lead – is in on the trick too; watching her very gently code-switching as the edit shifts between its different forms is not only fun, but a major benefit to the emotional tension at the centre.
There are – as usual with horror movies of this ilk – holes to pick, and Stuckmann’s detractors will no doubt take great glee in finding them. But as a feature in its own right, Shelby Oaks is a thoroughly entertaining, thoroughly unnerving good time at the cinema; a real shot-across-the-bows of the Blumhouse model, and studio horrors of recent years. The budget-pool they’re playing in isn’t completely out of the reach of a well-supported indie project anymore, especially one with a lot of talent behind the lens. And even though it might lack recognisable faces, you can see this going down very well with a wider audience.
Shelby Oaks was screened as part of Pigeon Shrine FrightFest 2024.
