The internet is a scary place, but not in the way the Boomer generation imagined in the 1990s. In the darkest corners of the World Wide Web, you’re more likely to get radicalized by a podcaster than kidnapped by an anonymous stranger. On those days where the algorithm feels particularly bleak, you may even feel a sense of nostalgia for the spooky old internet of low-res videos and creepypasta forums we once knew. Enter: Shelby Oaks.
From first-time director Chris Stuckmann (best known for his popular movie-review YouTube channel), Shelby Oaks centers on a simple mystery. The hosts of a fictional, early internet YouTube channel named Paranormal Paranoids head off to explore an abandoned amusement park and disappear. A decade later, the world has largely moved on, but Mia (Camille Sullivan), protective older sister of the group’s still-missing leader Riley (Sarah Durn), is determined to solve the mystery.
Before the movie truly gets going, we’re given all this information via a documentary-style info dump. News reports, home videos, and YouTube clips are interspersed and narrated by Sullivan. Finally, the camera pulls back to show a documentarian who quickly disappears from the plot. The camera refocuses on Sullivan, and, 20 minutes in, Shelby Oaks begins in earnest. While Stuckmann sometimes returns to found footage, he’s never truly commits to the format, instead mixing those moments with traditional horror filmmaking that sometimes feels creative but more often comes across as unsure of himself.
Most of the movie is pretty straightforward. Sullivan slowly makes progress in what everyone else sees as an extremely cold case as she begins to center her search on the nearby ghost town of Shelby Oaks, Ohio. There are plenty of slow and quiet scenes as she explores one abandoned setting after another, punctuated by startling jump scares that make you wonder if Sullivan’s protagonist has discovered the paranormal, or if she’s just paranoid. Shelby Oaks relies heavily on its physical locations — an abandoned psychiatric hospital, an abandoned amusement park, a creepy forest — to sell its story; Stuckmann doesn’t have to do much besides point the camera in the right direction. However, there are moments in the film’s final act where he and cinematographer Andrew Scott Baird pull off some impressive visual tricks to heighten the scariest moments that might remind you of the staccato staging pioneered by horror flicks like The Ring.
Without spoiling the movie’s biggest twists, I’ll say that Shelby Oaks eventually dips into demonic horror. Stuckmann is smart enough to never show us too much, leaving the audience to fill in those horrifying blanks. However, he’s perhaps a bit too timid in never delivering the big reveal that horror fans likely expect. It’s unclear if that’s a budget issue or a stylistic choice, which suggests it’s probably the latter. (There’s no half-baked CGI monstrosities to be found, if that’s a concern.)
Stuckmann’s inexperience as a director is unfortunately the most evident in Shelby Oak’s most crucial moments, which… takes the form of a slideshow. Well, not exactly, but Mia rifling through a series of photographs that perfectly explain the plot and don’t really make sense as a photo album isn’t exactly The Exorcist. Still, in the moment, the adrenaline flowing through my body was enough to keep me engaged.
Overall, Stuckmann’s directorial debut is a sturdy horror movie from a lover of film who clearly understands the genre. While the involvement of indie distributor Neon and producer Mike Flanagan must have gone a long way (For a sense of what the original version of Shelby Oaks was like, you can read the mostly positive reviews from its initial premiere at 2024’s Fantasia International Film Festival), there’s strong evidence of talent — and cinematic depravity — to be seen.
If Stuckmann decides to continue down this path, I’ll be excited to see what he does next with a bit more experience under his belt. But in the meantime, Shelby Oaks is a worthy meditation on what happens when early internet culture comes face-to-face with modern-day horror.
