Shelby Oaks (2024) review: Can a YouTube critic actually make a horror movie?

Welcome to Knockout Horror. The movie we are looking at today is just a little different from the norm. Not because it is packed with wildly unique ideas or an entirely new way of producing horror. But because it is made by a person who has built his entire career on criticising horror movies. We are reviewing Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks (2024).

A very familiar plot

The story kicks off with the disappearance of a group of paranormal YouTubers known as the Paranormal Paranoids (simply awful name!). After investigating a supposedly haunted location, each of the members vanished.

“That compelling narrative takes a back-seat to the type of scary movie stuff that most critics spend the vast majority of their review time deriding.”

The leading lady of the group, Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn), appears to be the only one left with any possibility of still being found. Her sister, Mia (Camille Sullivan), is unwilling to give up searching so launches herself deep into a mystery that will soon tie back to their childhood.

Shelby Oaks is a bold venture

Content creators turning their hands to horror movie making is nothing new. This year alone we’ve had House on Eden by KallMeKris and Bring Her Back by the Philippou brothers. The notable thing about those two releases is that they are just online personalities making horror movies.

The thing that makes Shelby Oaks just a little more unique is that the person who directed and wrote this film, Chris Stuckmann, isn’t just an online personality. He is a prolific horror YouTuber who made his name reviewing genre films.

I don’t really engage in horror content outside of movies as I don’t want to influence my own personal opinion on films. With that being said, his style has been described, in the past, as often scathing and he has achieved an admirable level of success.

It takes some serious balls to actually put your money where your mouth is and turn your hand to directing. I mean, after all, you are setting yourself up for some immense criticism should you fail. You have made a significant amount of money off the backs of slamming indie movies. People are going to absolutely relish the opportunity to fire back if you mess your own indie movie up.

Definitely shows promise but is it over-hyped?

The hype behind Shelby Oaks is probably worth a lot more than the reality of the film. They needed to milk Stuckmann’s popularity for all it’s worth. Some of the rhetoric from certain reviewers has been absolutely baffling as well.

“Completely redefines the horror genre” was an actual quote from one utter lunatic. Horror reviewers, generally speaking, are a bunch of morons and, yes, that includes me every now and then. They will say any old shit to see their name on a poster. I wouldn’t say this movie is bad by any stretch, I actually think it’s an immense first effort. It’s just extremely generic.

There’s a lot that Stuckmann nails in a way that suggests he has actually been behind the camera for much longer than he has. His shot selection, for example, was extremely impressive. When you watch thousands of horror movies, you notice what separates the good from the bad. One of those things is slow, deliberate, lingering shots versus quick, chaotic, and hyperactive ones. Stuckmann is utterly deliberate and impressively patient.

Scenes are allowed to linger, affording the viewer an opportunity to background watch. Much of that background watching is actually rewarded, as well. This is clearly something he has taken away from his thousands of hours spent watching genre films.

As a whole, Shelby Oaks looks fantastic. Lighting is suitably gloomy, locations are excellent and legitimately well thought out, and the entire production feels like it is the product of a movie with a decently high budget. It actually has a few effective scares, in parts, as well.

A compelling start

The first half of the movie is pretty damn interesting. Sure, the generic “YouTuber gone missing” plot is only noteworthy for how familiar it is but the execution is spot on. Stuckmann chose to approach it as something of a Lake Mungo-esque mockumentary complete with interviews and a lot of backstory exposing on the relationship between the missing Riley and her sister.

It’s pretty compelling stuff and the frequent hints at Riley’s dark childhood only serve to draw you deeper into the story. Stuckmann says he wanted to craft the narrative to reflect a real life situation of his own. Something which I think makes the early goings quite relatable. We can all buy into a person missing their sibling, right?

The mix of found footage and documentary style presentation works really well. It’s on a similar level to crime based horror Strange Harvest as far as execution goes. For the most part, Shelby Oaks hits all the notes and feels every part the authentic docu-horror experience.

A decent lead performance from Camille Sullivan only further serves to help you buy in. There’s actually some pretty creepy moments here, as well. Butterfly Kisses came to mind with the way Stuckmann has managed to weave in some genuinely sinister background scares.

It’s always nice to have your paranoid scanning of the landscape and shadows rewarded with an actual fright. It all works pretty well and I was thoroughly bought in. Unfortunately, that’s where the movie takes somewhat of a baffling turn.

A slide into generic horror 101

Around the midway point, Shelby Oaks suddenly sheds its mockumentary coat and becomes a standard horror movie. The only found footage stuff remaining is in flashback form. This is when the film begins its rapid descent into formulaic supernatural horror.

Mia’s search for Riley takes her to a few different copy & paste horror locations, as well as to the home of your trademark horror hag where the story opens up a little. The intrigue and goodwill that was amassed earlier in the movie is suddenly cashed in for standard spooky movie fare.

Everything from the midway point out is a collection of horror tropes the likes of which would make a Conjuring spin-off blush. Jump scares, demon dogs, spooky locations… It’s all there and it’s all incredibly cliched. All of a sudden, that compelling narrative takes a back-seat to the type of scary movie stuff that most critics spend the vast majority of their review time deriding.

“Stuckmann is utterly deliberate and impressively patient. Scenes are allowed to linger, affording the viewer an opportunity to background watch.”

The pacing takes a big hit due to this switch, as well. It’s a very clunky transition that many viewers will feel is a bit of a bait-and-switch. You are left having to re-calibrate your expectations and that is a big problem if you just so happened to be enjoying that compelling mystery mockumentary that came in the first half.

A head-scratching blunder

It’s a baffling decision from a person who rightly shit all over that type of horror content in the past. It’s very strange to point an accusing finger at directors that make those decisions when producing horror films. Only to go and do the very same thing yourself. That takes a very special lacking of insight.

I will hold my hands up and happily say that I would never make a horror movie. I have seen how difficult, time consuming, and all encompassing it is. But, if I did, I would like to think I would do anything I could to avoid cramming it full of the very tropes I had spent my years on this site crapping all over.

I think Stuckmann has lost a bit of good faith with fans, judging by the discourse surrounding this film. Hopefully he will pay equal attention to the people criticising it along with the ass kissers. There is potential here and it’s an opportunity to grow. With that being said, Shelby Oaks will probably be an enjoyable film to people who enjoy tropey supernatural horror stuff.

It’s no worse than a lot of other indie horror movies that attempt to put their own spin on formulaic horror cliches. In a lot of ways, it is a very promising indicator of the potential that Stuckmann has to become a legitimately great horror filmmaker. He just needs to settle on a single idea and listen to his own criticisms when producing his movies. Less tropes, more experimentation.

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Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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