Shelby Oaks

I went to see Shelby Oaks on 10/24/25, which was the first day of its theatrical run. I was alone at my screening.

I went because I love horror. The movie's premise reads like something you'd read for any random horror movie on the Tubi app: a woman goes missing while she investigates the paranormal, and her sister tries to find her. It's an extremely basic, cliched, un-original premise for a horror. But I was fine with it because, again, I like horror (I even enjoy those Tubi original horror flicks even!)

But in the end, I hated this movie

There are so many issues that I can rattle off -- the first, which might be most conspicious, is that the lead actress is way too old for the role; she looks more like a distressed mother than a sister. She and her missing sister Riley look nothing alike. They do not pass as sisters

In addition - the movie has an awkward construction. It starts off in a documentary fashion, as if it were a found-footage film. Then when the main character Mia goes out to look for the missing sister, the documentary/found-footage perspective goes away entirely. This jump in presentation, from found-footage to conventional, is simply weird and puzzling; and I'm not sure what the point is. The movie could have easily been made as one or the other. It could've been told as a complete found-footage or a conventional movie.

Some of the plot details don't work. The girl had been missing for 12 years, and in spite of all the police work and publicity, nobody else could spot the details that Mia does when she watches her sister's old videos ... the character Mia has a husband who serves no purpose in the movie (infact, I actually think they should have scrapped his character entirely to give the sense that Mia had nobody else but her sister) ... when Mia goes out into the woods to look for her sister, she bizarrely goes out by herself. What happened to the documentary crew? That Mia is alone means that she wanders about in silence, which becomes a drag. Having someone to talk to might've made these scenes a bit more lively. I found myself yawning and getting restless during that part ... the movie's ending is unsatisfying

The only positive is that some scenes are visually well-done, and there's even one really creepy scene involving a photo album. But they're not enough to make up for the film's many shortcomings

3.5/10.

High hopes dashes away midway through film. It started off with a uniquely fresh approach to telling the story, but fell into the cliche of brave person falling in the trappings of a common horror movie. There's a lot of scenes that made no sense that the only conclusion is exactly how most horror films with a supernatural villain ends. The protagonist's conviction after 12 years has finally waned when presented a means to her true desire - succumbs to temptation. A solid 7 for the unique, ala dateline NBC news segment style film intro. 7 for the good actors. An awful 1 score for the predictable ending which diluted the effectiveness of the scare score of 3. See it if you dare sit through another frustratingly cliche horror film.

Now before I begin, I want to say I enjoyed Chris Stuckmann's critic videos and works in the past. Having seen his reviews and talks about his upbringings in the vile Jehovah Witnesses cult was interesting. He seems like a chill person. Now for his first debut feature film, there are some good aspects, yet also not so great aspects.

Starters, the atmosphere and presentation is pretty good. With the tones of supernatural, mystery, found footage style and blended with paranoia themes, it helps add layers of tension within the setting and concept. Alongside with some solid special effects, production designs and camera work, there are some genuinely good moments of creepy sequences, atmospheres within the setting, and the colors too. Stuckmann's direction is decent, as he was able to capture the essence of the themes and balances pretty well. Alright admittedly, there are some direction chops that didn't land very well.

The performances are pretty solid. Camille Sullivan was really good, alongside with the rest of the cast members too. Unfortunately, the writing and execution causes the movie to prevent it from being good. First of all, the story and concept is good and the writing does offer some unique and fun horror ideas. But the issues is that it feels like Stuckmann struggles to blend the writing perfectly with what he wants to present. Because of that, the writing demonstrates a lot of horror cliches that are predictable and moments that feel messy. Which makes the characters of the movie hard to believe in nor engage.

Alongside with some annoying jump scares, the dialogue does feel wonky. As if the dialogue feels like something of a student film project does. On the effects, there are some good animal and blood effects, including sound designs. And the pacing is pretty solid.

At the end, I'm happy Chris Stuckmann is able to finally make his movie. He has talent for sure and I do like to see where he leads next. But, he really needs to get a better writer.

This review is following a screening from Fantasia Festival and I realize that this is a first feature film and Chris seems like a nice guy but this was amateur hour.

I'll start with the positives, the cinematography was excellent and the lead actress was for the most part pretty credible. This film also had a promising prologue, although mostly riffing on Blair witch projects premise. Finally Keith David classed the joint up in a small role.

On the negative side, the relationship with the husband and lead was beyond poorly written, with a poorly acted argument sticking out in my memory. I was stunned when I was advised the husband is a working actor with many credits to his name.

The worst sin is that it's a horror film that just isn't scary, relying on cheap jumpscares and poor cgi dogs. The third act and ending also leave much to be desired where the audience was audibly laughing at what I would think were serious moments. The abysmal ending left me ambivalent rather than shocked as I imagine Chris intended. The biggest ruse is that this has been picked up for distribution, I can't see an average audience unfamiliar with Chris' YouTube career connecting with this film.

I've been following Chris Stuckmann on YouTube ever since I saw his explanation video of 'Enemy' over ten years ago. I haven't watched his channel in a few years since he decided to change things up, but I've followed the progress of 'Shelby Oaks' since its inception back in 2021. I finally got to see it today and it was - quite a letdown, I'm sad to say.

Back in 2014 Stuckmann did a video titled 'The Problem with Horror Movies Today' and a large segment of that video was explaining why jump scares are so terrible and such a cheap gimmick. A direct quote from that video was, "The jump scare is the cheapest tactic used in horror films today." I tend to agree. So I had really hoped that Stuckmann would make a point of avoiding them all together in his debut film. Sadly, he did not. There aren't too many of them but they are in there and they are not well done. He even uses one during a piece of found footage, which is a major no-no.

The film is terribly clunky. It starts as a mockumentary and then suddenly it's not. The story has no focus and darts all over the place with terrible (CGI? - they looked CGI at least) dogs guiding the film. And the ending sequence was bizarre and didn't work for me at all. It felt like he was trying to cram ten films into one.

It's low budget so the acting is very dodgy in a lot of cases. Thankfully the lead actress Camille Sullivan is decent. She does her best to carry the film and keep it watchable.

This one didn't work though. It's never scary or interesting. The mystery doesn't captivate and there are a lot of choices that are quite cringe inducing. It's a debut film so there's plenty of time for him to learn and grow is the good news. 3/10.