Directed By Chris Stuckmann

Starring – Camille Sullivan, Sarah Durn, Brendan Sexton III

The Plot – A woman’s (Sullivan) desperate search for her long-lost sister (Durn) falls into a spiraling obsession upon realizing that the imaginary demon from their childhood may have been real.

Rated R for violent content/gore, suicide and adult language.

SHELBY OAKS – Official Trailer – In Theaters October 24

POSITIVES

It’s clearly evident that fifteen years as Youtube’s most renowned movie critic has elicited an abundance of artistic knowledge and advantageous experience towards the capabilities of filmmaking, and because of such the passion that Chris has towards the genre truly shines towards establishing such an uneasy atmosphere, that is realized almost exclusively in the depths of the movie’s opening fifteen minutes. When I say that this is one of the best hooks of the year into a film, intend that the praise is effortlessly earned, as not only does Chris effectively establish intrigue into the disappearance of Riley, and really how that absence has haunted those closest to her who are forced to endure a life without her, but also in the open-ended possibilities of the established supernatural world here, which inspires audiences the limitless accessibility to experience a story that can seemingly take shape in any kind of human or otherworldly form, towards peaking the curiosity factors of the audience. Because this is a film whose script revels so dedicatedly towards piecing together a mystery, featuring so many fascinating questions with the disappearance that are playing psychologically in the heads of its audience at all times, there really is an uncomfortable factor in the grasping of stakes and realities that creates a pleasantly disorienting ambiance on the audience at all times, While the scares are admittedly hit and miss for me, personally, I can say that Chris effectively masters how to at least preheat the oven before sticking in the turkey, and as a result the film maintains a tightly wound and palpable tension that persists over the consistency of its 94-minute runtime, but none as prominently palpable as those during its initial introductions, which do such a remarkable job towards luring spectators into the devastation of its after cause effects in the stirring balance between found footage and traditionalized captivities, accordingly. Stuckmann also does a brilliant job at wielding the most bang for his buck, with regards to the movie’s million dollar Kickstarter-produced budget, ideally in the depths of utilizing his home state of Ohio towards conjuring some creepy locations to accommodate Riley’s Urban Explorer background that comes to define her. While the locations themselves will only flourish a personal endearment to those like me who are quite familiar with the many locations used throughout the film, I truly feel that even outsider audiences to Ohio will find a lot of appeal in the ambiance and isolation factors within the many dark corridors that Chris openly embraces towards his shooting schedule, giving the film and its established settings a lived-in naturality that attains reality in such a fictionalized story, all the while proving how effortlessly that Ohio plays to the dependency of such a horror movie backdrop. As for the storytelling, there are some gripes that I will eventually get to in discussing the movie’s inferior second half, however this definitely feels like a story that is very personal to Chris, especially in the relationship between these sisters, which feels like the single most fleshed out arc of the entire movie, on account of Mia’s manifestation of memories with Riley while growing up together. Being that Chris sadly lost out on decades of his life with his own real-life sister, on account of his family shunning her from their Jehovah’s Witness upbringing, that intimacy of sibling bond and essence of lost time feels influentially palpable in the depths of his storytelling spanning twelve years in the lives of these reeling victims, providing not only a motivating factor for Mia’s limitless pursuits, which have since put the lives of her and her husband on hold, but also solidifying a heartfelt center at the movie’s core, which helps to override some of the limitations in characterization that we unfortunately don’t attain in such a limited screen time alongside Riley. Speaking of those sibling sisters, the performances here from Camille Sullivan and Sarah Durn are especially impactful towards the emotionality of the engagement, with each of them implementing such a gut-wrenching humanity in the designs of their respective portrayals. For Sullivan, she truly dazzles in the confines of her trepidation in the hopelessness that continuously plagues her investigation, equally attaining a grit and resiliency that makes the character easily investable, despite constantly feeling overwhelmed in the designs of unforeseen obstacles that linger before her, and Durn, while relegated to a bit of a supporting turn for a story that centers around the disappearance of her character, shines with the kind of helpless vulnerability and transfixing persistence to adversaries lingering just off camera that we study on account of her facial registries conveying what we’re incapable of seeing for ourselves, solidifying two star-making turns that shine under the weight of the film’s dependency upon them.

NEGATIVES

While “Shelby Oaks” certainly solidifies Stuckmann as an up-and-coming filmmaker worthy of celebrated prominence, his skills as a screenwriter certainly require a bit more polishing before his sophomore effort, particularly in the depths of his daunting dialogue and overall creativity, which often shoehorn so much clashing versatility into a story that required a bit more nuance in its execution. On the subject of the interactions between characters, there is an overwhelming essence of forced intention to casually push narratives that transcends the naturality and consistencies of speech pattern familiarities, making it all the easier to openly predict where scenes will eventually transcend towards, while obscuring the patience and proceeding of banter, and it all just supplants a premeditated importance to the consistency of scenes, instead of supplanting value to those quiet moments that help mature and evolve a mystery, attaining an abundance of convenience to resolutions that feel a bit simplistic and effortless, despite this being a twelve year investigation that local authorities couldn’t crack. As for the kind of horror movie that “Shelby Oaks” is, there’s a real creative tug-of-war persisting within Stuckmann that makes it feel like he was incapable of selecting just one of the many kinds of influences that drive his inspiration, and as a result we have a film that wants to be a found footage, supernatural beast thriller, and even demonic possession, without any of these ingredients seemingly stirring evocatively with one another. This is especially felt during the movie’s second act, where the film’s creativity constantly shifts and evolves its conflict towards feeling bigger and bolder than previously assumed, and while it definitely elevates the stakes towards the kind of unfamiliar waters that will challenge these sisters further than anything that either of them have ever confronted, there is a scatterbrained element of spontaneity that makes this feel like an R-rated episode of Goosebumps, where anything feels possible, and it just kind of overwhelmed me in the times that I wish the film would’ve scaled it back with more emotionality over fantastical lore, especially considering the special effects certainly leave more to be desired in their usage alongside the movie’s uninspiring cinematography. This is not something that I’m necessarily blaming Chris for, as the limitations inside of a shoestring budget certainly confine his creativity as a commanding director, but the overall presentation for “Shelby Oaks” is one of the most artificially vapid and colorfully unappealing that I have seen this year, made worse with these captures of the beast at the forefront of this conflict that admittedly show far more than I would’ve wanted in a rendering so laughably artificial. It’s bad enough that the technique of Stuckmann as a guiding hand doesn’t elicit any ambitious shot compositions or enticing editing techniques, but it’s even worse when the artificial dimensions of this beast singlehandedly takes away focus from the integrity of the engagement, and it makes me wish that the director opted for more of a “Blair Witch Project” approach, in which less certainly could’ve elicited more intrigue in the air of the audience. This obviously has a hand in the overall frights for the film, as Chris disappointingly opts for more of the jolting jump scares that he spent a career as a critic condemning, instead of taking advantage of the ominous atmosphere that he has such a brilliant eye for, and with ear-piercing sound design commanding intentionally attention-stealing emphasis from the proceedings, Stuckmann revels in the decision to startle instead of shake his audience, leaving such a void of emphasized over-the-top thrills throughout that doesn’t pay this film off with any kind of memorability to compete with a year packed to the brim of exceptional horror films. Finally, the film nearly lost me with an ending that felt far too rushed in convenience and detrimental towards fulfilling payoffs, leaving me flatlined at the film’s most integral moments towards leaving a lasting impression. While the conflict builds towards a scintillating physical conflict, even surprisingly resolving the who and what of Riley’s disappearance, the confrontation feels far too abrupt and dramatically flat to feel endearing, and with an epilogue that spans on for far too long, in order to elicit the last bang that seemingly all horror movies after 1996’s “Scream” subscribe to, it begins to test the pacing during the times when it feels truly compromising to its integrity, taking it down quite a noticeable step from the aforementioned alluring introduction that had me yearning to resolve this compelling mystery.

OVERALL
“Shelby Oaks” inspires a daringly daunting transition for Youtube critic-turned-director, Chris Stuckmann, whose debut effort behind the camera, instead of in front of it, does elicit a lot of promise in ominously enticing atmosphere and familial bonds, despite being plagued by the perils of an overabundance on style and horror subgenres that has it feeling a bit tediously self-indulging to the kinds of horror that Stuckmann grew up idolizing. While the performances from Sullivan and Durn are ultimately the pulse that keeps the story beating, the unsatisfying feelings of its resolving storytelling lingers most, long after the film’s conclusion, leaving this feeling like the proverbial walk to Stuckmann’s secondary career, so that he can run next time.

My Grade: 6.1 or C-