“Shelby Oaks” is a Genre-Blending Ride
There’s a long history of film critics becoming filmmakers that dates back to the founding members of the French New Wave. Who better to take a spin in the director’s chair than someone who spends hours poring over films, taking stock of every detail? While Agnes Varda and Jean-Luc Godard may have laid the groundwork, their experience as critics couldn’t have accounted for the rise of YouTube film criticism. That’s where Chris Stuckmann cut his teeth before taking the feature-length plunge with his horror flick, Shelby Oaks.
The film is a continuation of an online series about a group of four paranormal investigators, the Paranormal Paranoids. They were looking into the abandoned town of Shelby Oaks, Ohio, when they went missing. After investigation, the bodies of three members of the team were recovered, but the body of Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn) was never found. Many years after the fact, Riley’s sister, Mia (Camille Sullivan), hasn’t given up hope. She doesn’t believe Riley is dead and she thinks someone out there knows where her sister is.
For those who are interested in true crime but feel a little gross about consuming the tragedies of real people, Shelby Oaks will scratch that itch. Part pseudo documentary, part found footage, and part traditional narrative, Shelby Oaks moves fluidly between each style in a thrilling manner. Using all these styles allows Stuckmann to play in the genres he’s familiar with, but also allows the film to shift to different perspectives in a compelling manner. Instead of merely offering us a flashback to before Riley disappeared, she’s alive again on shaky camcorder footage and we’re in Shelby Oaks with her until the last moment. It creates a more visceral experience for the viewer to creep into the world of this abandoned Ohio town and see the mysteries it holds. More than that, Stuckmann has managed to make a film that’s ever-shifting, speaking to the way we consume media today. We go from documentaries on our TV to highly polished social media content before stumbling upon clips that are shot in a quivery manner. The way Shelby Oaks morphs from one to the other speaks to our own daily consumption of media and how these lines remain ever-blurry.
Living horror legend Mike Flanagan acts as a producer for the film, and his frequent composer collaborators, the Newton Brothers, scored Shelby Oaks. It’s no surprise that Flanagan would be interested in Stuckmann’s work. Both share a reverence for horror’s ability to speak to loss in the midst of spooks and scares. Beneath its paranormal haunts, Shelby Oaks is a story of sisters and the parts of their childhood that stayed with them. Horror has the ability to frighten and comfort, and that’s what makes the genre so elastic, so versatile. There are moments in Shelby Oaks that fly under the radar before you’re presented with another look at that shadow in the corner. What hides there? Is it the monsters under the bed we haven’t outgrown or something more tangible?
A viewer’s mileage depends on how they feel about supernatural horror flicks. In the first two-thirds of the film, the paranormal influence is kept at the edges. Naturally, as we get closer to the end, the influence grows. It’s much like The Blair Witch Project in the sense that some will never be able to forget the ending while others will struggle to make sense of the shadows. Unlike its predecessor, though, Shelby Oaks manages to successfully straddle the line of elevated horror with a shot of adrenaline to the familiar horror tropes. It will be interesting to see where Stuckmann goes next.
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