Movie: Shelby Oaks (2025)
Production Companies: Paper Street Pictures, Intrepid Pictures
Distributed by: Neon
Producer(s): Aaron B. Koontz, Cameron Burns, Ashleigh Snead, Chris Stuckmann
Directed by: Chris Stuckmann
Written by: Chris Stuckmann
Starring: Camille Sullivan, Brendan Sexton III, Sarah Durn
Review by: Stefano Todaro

Chris Stuckmann is one of the pioneers of YouTube film criticism, having started reviewing films on the website in 2009. What began as a humble channel with short reviews of films eventually turned into a behemoth with over 2 million subscribers. Even though Stuckmann’s interests and reviews cover video games, anime, and all genres of film, he has always been especially captivated by horror films. Fast forward to today, and Chris Stuckmann’s directorial debut is in cinemas across the country. Even more impressive is the fact that his film, Shelby Oaks, was primarily funded through a Kickstarter campaign. Nearly 15,000 backers contributed 1.4 million dollars.

Shelby Oaks tells a simple tale. Riley, along with the other members of her Paranormal Paranoids YouTube troupe, went missing after they visited and started filming an episode in Shelby Oaks, Ohio. Shelby Oaks had mysteriously turned into a ghost town, and the group was there to uncover the truth about what paranormal happenings led to the downfall of the town. After over a decade of the group being missing, a team of documentarians follows up with family and friends for the latest updates. A mysterious man delivers a tape to Mia, Riley’s older sister, that proves that Riley might still be out there.

Stuckmann’s film is undeniably difficult to review. This is an independent film that was primarily funded by viewers of his YouTube channel. It’s an absolute miracle that Shelby Oaks got a wide theatrical release, and it’s a miracle that it was made in the first place. A critique of such a precious passion project feels misplaced, but would Stuckmann really want viewers and critics to avoid legitimate criticisms of his work? Not a chance. For somebody who cut their teeth on reviewing films, he would undoubtedly want critics to be honest about Shelby Oaks. It pains me to say that this film struggled immensely to find its footing.

The film’s first 20 minutes are promising. Our story is told under the guise of a fake documentary and found footage. Found footage horror films have been done to death, but based on the storytelling decisions for the rest of the film, I’m left imagining a much better version of Shelby Oaks that is completely found footage and a fake documentary. The remaining hour of the film is told through a normal narrative lens. Mia goes off to learn more about her missing sister. During this hunt for information, we run into a laundry list of horror movie tropes. Mia visits a library to read old newspapers, Mia references a demonology book, Mia visits a “wise person” to learn more about a mysterious figure, and Mia becomes the crazy person that nobody believes. Running through so many classic tropes can work if handled in a potentially tongue-in-cheek or self-aware way, but this film takes itself so deeply seriously that those moments come off as amateurish. Its self-seriousness would work in a more well-executed film, but questionable performances from Camille Sullivan and Brendan Sexton III make the gap between what we’re seeing and Stuckmann’s intentions that much wider. Some of the moments and performances get dangerously close to unintentional camp.

Outside of the found footage elements, the general look of Shelby Oaks feels too sharp and polished for me to buy into the dread of it all. Not polished as in “well polished,” but polished as in looking like a Hallmark film or a dramatization on an episode of Joe Kenda’s Homicide Hunter. If you want to give Stuckmann the benefit of the doubt, you can say that the true-crime show dramatization and B-horror look was intentional, but that feels too generous given the film’s other shortcomings. Most of the sets looked outstanding and were full of creative ideas, but the camera (and even the lighting) didn’t do them justice.

In a rare critique, this film needed more time to breathe. It’s a tight 90 minutes, with 10 minutes belonging to the credits. Some of horror’s very best films are even shorter than that, but 80 minutes wasn’t nearly enough time for Stuckmann’s ideas to properly come through, although the action of the film is incredibly basic and hardly justifies more screen time. There’s a combination of a revolving door of ideas with a lack of compelling action that really muddies everything up. You can tell there were seeds of larger and more intriguing ideas throughout, but so many elements were left to die, and too many things are explained abruptly or not at all.

When it’s all said and done, we’re left with countless questions. Not fun and mysterious questions, but wonderings about how and why certain things happened, or even existed in the film at all. Horror films don’t need to spark intellectual conversation after the credits roll, but based on what I saw in Shelby Oaks, there’s no doubt Stuckmann wanted to encourage dialogues. Rather than the sleuthing audience members might engage in after an effective horror film, you’re left trying to find answers to questions about the basic mechanics of the film’s story.

4.9/10

By: Stefano Todaro