Shelby Oaks movie review A first film directed ‘critically’ by Chris Stuckmann–a hit and miss. This could be due the basic concept or because there is something trendy in raising money for production through smaller backers which involves making a flashy promo instead of writing the screenplay but the film is burdened with a constant switching from one familiar over used sub-genre to another quite a few times. The action starts like in a found footage movie: a documentarian (Neil Canesco) while making a movie meets Mia (Camille Sullivan)–who is a sister of the long-lost Riley Brennan (Sarah Dorn), one member of the four podcasters called ‘Paranormal Paranoids’ who went missing in the abandoned, possibly cursed, town of Shelby Oaks, twelve years ago. The audience is introduced to the main characters and their storylines, including that of Mia when she was a child, her younger sister’s chronic night terrors (an image of a man peering through her window), and many investigators shenanigans that go along Blair Witch in a proper manner but everything that is said here doesn’t make this any more original: this is something like the thirtieth natural-psychosocial-podcasting-and-being-pretty-much-podcasting-and-podcasters-getting-adaptations-length fable.
Along with this, after a reel of this, there’s the change of format (also the change of screen size) and once again something is heard on the doorsteps of Mia and the credits get cut in–it is so disruptive that I thought for a second we were being shown a new film which is a film within the film where the film version of the story that is witnessed in the found footage segment and how so much thought has been put into this version but no it is the film again and we step forward in linear narration, though there are a few clich-segments which are used until now. A couple of mystery threads are followed that take the viewer to at least two interesting places-a deserted prison and a deserted amusement park that have traces of the distressing and the disappearance events. Then, Mia–who is so obsessed with the whereabouts of her missing sister that her husband (Brendan Sexton III) has become impatient with her theatrics and with the couple putting off the idea of having children–goes SOS several times, entering terrifying places alone for the most frivolous reasons like a had-I-but-known heroine from old time horror movies.
There are some possible answers offered, but in the conclusion of the film there appears one of my most hated horror gimmicks of the late 2000s together with an unbroken homage to a classic that has two new adaptations, with more to come (including a proper remake). Apart from its meandering and over-the-top sequences, Shelby Oaks has some fervent high points–Sullivan has what it takes in the lead role (Durn, in a minor part, makes most of being possessed) and there is an outrageously unsettling appearance by Robin Bartlett later in the picture. A possessed old woman who is apparently the last survivor of this deserted place (though the fact that she is given the name ‘Norma’ can be seen as yet another frivolous nod to yet another classic in the horror genre).
It is possible that the film is a haphazard, often exasperating blob, but I will always say it’s terrifying–for all its flaws I tend to point out Eurotrip as a so bad it’s good type of comedy; it’s not well scripted, seems to have had the scenes stitched together in post production, is pretty vulgar but manages to be funny throughout. Shelby Andrews is incredibly imitative, stumbles over its own premise, features one last one out of many clumsy elements that do offend audiences, and has a rather unhealthy account of how women are perceived through the J.D Vance lens… But it’s the wobbly windows, the dilapidated theme park style scenes complete with haunting looking rusted prison like cells, abrupt changes and the shock/surprise are all really effective.
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