Shelby Oaks

Chris Stuckmann, best known for being one of YouTube's most eloquent film critics for ten years, spent years dissecting horror cinema before deciding to make his own film. His debut feature, Shelby Oaks, has generated high expectations, not only because it was crowdfunded on Kickstarter with record success, but also because it represents the rare case of a critic stepping into the creative space he has so often judged. The result is a film that is both deeply personal and highly uneven, a ghost story steeped in nostalgia for the VHS era of horror but haunted by its own struggle to find an identity. It's an ambitious debut that proves Chris Stuckmann knows the rhythms of the genre intimately, but also that admiration alone cannot replace authorship. Shelby Oaks stands out as a fascinating but imperfect experience where passion trumps precision.

The film's story revolves around Camille Sullivan as Mia Brennan, a journalist still reeling from the disappearance of her younger sister, Riley, played by Sarah Durn, who once led a group of ghost hunters on YouTube known as the Paranormal Paranoids. Their online investigations of haunted locations across the United States caused a sensation on the internet, until the team disappeared during a trip to the eponymous town of Shelby Oaks. Years later, Mia receives a mysterious videotape that appears to show Riley alive, reigniting her obsession and drawing her into a spiraling investigation through ruined houses, abandoned prisons, and urban legends. The script is captivating, and the first act captures something few horror movies manage to do: the unsettling texture of digital folklore. Through mockumentaries, found footage, and jerky images, Chris Stuckmann recreates the feeling of watching cursed YouTube clips at 2 a.m., where truth and fiction merge into something that seems abnormal, without you really being able to put your finger on it. It's an impressive opening, full of promise.

Unfortunately, once the story shifts from a pseudo-documentary setting to a conventional narrative, the film begins to lose its substance. Chris Stuckmann clearly reveres classics such as The Blair Witch Project, Lake Mungo, and Hereditary, and he draws freely from them, sometimes too freely. What begins as a meta-commentary on how modern media mythologizes tragedy gradually turns into a classic supernatural mystery, complete with cult symbols, dark entities, and whispered warnings about an invisible demon named Tarion. The lore is scattered and over-explained, and while the film hints at cosmic horror, it never manages to achieve the psychological power necessary for that kind of terror. The more it explains, the less chilling it becomes. By the time Mia discovers cryptic symbols and old tapes in the woods, the tension has evaporated in a fog of familiar imagery and hollow symbolism.

Shelby Oaks is not without moments of genuine power, however. Chris Stuckmann's direction, though sometimes heavy-handed, reveals a natural eye for composition and atmosphere. Cinematographer Andrew Scott Baird bathes the film in desaturated grays and dull yellows, evoking both the decay of the Midwest and the dying warmth of family memories. The use of real locations in Ohio—the abandoned Chippewa Lake Park, the rusted hallways of the Ohio State Prison—anchors the film's supernatural mystery in palpable despair. One sequence in particular, in which Charlie Talbert's character films his own depression before abruptly ending his life on camera, is disturbing not because of the blood, but because of his resignation. The silence that precedes the act lasts longer than any scream. These fleeting flashes offer a glimpse of the more acute and psychological horror that Chris Stuckmann could one day deliver if he learned to trust silence over spectacle.

The emotional heart of the film rests with Camille Sullivan, whose performance gives the story its soul. She embodies Mia as a person fraying at the edges, haunted not by monsters, but by her memories. Sullivan, who brought quiet ferocity to Hunter Hunter, channels the same energy here, her grief manifesting itself as obsession. Even when the script fails to deepen her character, she finds meaning in micro-expressions: a tremor in her voice as she replays the tape, the weariness of someone who knows she may be chasing ghosts, literally or figuratively. Her scenes with Robin Bartlett, who plays a mysterious woman who may hold the key to Riley's fate, inject a dose of menace that the rest of the film too rarely manages to maintain. Bartlett's strange, singsong dialogue and unflappable smiles evoke old-fashioned folk horror, and for a brief moment, Shelby Oaks seems animated by terror once again.

But the flaws in the script ultimately drown out these moments. The mythology surrounding the demon Tarion is thin and inconsistently explained, and the editing often struggles to maintain the tone, shifting abruptly from an atmosphere of terror to overexposed exposition. Even the climactic confrontation, which takes place in a ruined building covered in occult graffiti, falls flat. Instead of intensifying to achieve transcendence or tragedy, the ending retreats into an ambiguity that feels more like exhaustion than mystery. It feels like Chris Stuckmann wanted to evoke the same emotional devastation as The Sixth Sense or The Innocents, but lacked the structural discipline to pull it off. The result is a visually strong but emotionally empty finale, a ghost story that never quite finds its ghost.

Yet there is something strangely endearing about Shelby Oaks. Despite its uneven pacing and derivative writing, you can sense that this is a labor of love, born of a sincere affection for the language of horror rather than commercial calculation. Chris Stuckmann doesn't hide his influences, because he's still in the process of assimilating them; this is the early work of someone learning, on camera, what kind of storyteller he wants to become. In this sense, Shelby Oaks mirrors Mia's journey: both are obsessed with finding meaning in the shadows, chasing something lost, unsure if the quest itself is the goal. There is a strange honesty in this creative disorder.

Shelby Oaks is a film that oscillates between genius and banality, sincerity and imitation. It has atmosphere, conviction, and some spellbinding moments, but also too many explanations, too many borrowed tricks, and a myth that feels unfinished. Chris Stuckmann proves himself a promising filmmaker, but one who still lacks precision. His first film hints at real talent buried in a story that doesn't fully trust its own silence. Shelby Oaks is an imperfect but intriguing debut from a creator who clearly loves horror enough to lose himself in it, even if he hasn't yet learned how to safely bring others along for the ride.

Shelby Oaks
Written and directed by Chris Stuckmann
Story by Samantha Elizabeth, Chris Stuckmann
Based on Paranormal Paranoids by Chris Stuckmann
Produced by Aaron B. Koontz, Cameron Burns, Ashleigh Snead, Chris Stuckmann
Starring Camille Sullivan, Brendan Sexton III, Keith David, Sarah Durn, Derek Mears, Emily Bennett, Charlie Talbert, Robin Bartlett, Michael Beach
Cinematography: Andrew Scott Baird
Edited by Patrick Lawrence, Brett W. Bachman
Music by James Burkholder, The Newton Brothers
Production companies: Paper Street Pictures, Intrepid Pictures
Distributed by Neon (United States)
Release dates: July 20, 2024 (Fantasia), October 24, 2025 (United States), November 19, 2025 (France)
Running time: 91 minutes

Seen on November 14, 2025 at Gaumont Disney Village, Theater 3, seat A19

Too busy pampering the print media and a few pseudo-influencers, French distributor Metropolitan FilmExport did not deem it necessary to organize a press screening for media outlets such as ours, despite our more than 22 years of experience. After seeing the film, we can understand a certain reluctance... but by neglecting the specialized media that really talk about cinema, their releases fly under the radar. The result: sparse theaters, virtually non-existent word of mouth, and plummeting visibility. A very bad strategic calculation.

Mulder's Mark: