Shelby Oaks (dir. Chris Stuckmann)

by Jack Martin | Oct 31, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 91 mins

UK Distributor: Altitude Films

UK Release Date: 29 October 2025

WHO’S IN SHELBY OAKS?

Camille Sullivan, Brendan Sexton III, Michael Beach, Robin Bartlett, Keith David, Sarah Durn, Eric Francis Melaragni, Anthony Baldasare, Caisey Cole, Charlie Talbert, Emily Bennett, Rob Grant, Lauren Ashley Berry, Derek Mears, Brenna Sherman, Sloane Burkett

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Chris Stuckmann (director, writer, producer), Cameron Burns, Aaron B. Koontz and Ashleigh Snead (producers), James Burkholder and The Newton Brothers (composers), Andrew Scott Baird (cinematographer), Brett W. Bachman and Patrick Lawrence (editors)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Whilst searching for her long-lost sister (Durn), a woman (Sullivan) encounters a terrifying evil…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON SHELBY OAKS?

“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t do or teach, criticise.” Marsha Hinds said those words when describing the nature of criticism, but they don’t really apply to a few renowned filmmakers who started out as critics before graduating to the big leagues. Peter Bogdanovich and Paul Schrader are among them, as are French New Wave icons François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Now joining their ranks is Chris Stuckmann, the well-renowned YouTube film critic who with his debut feature Shelby Oaks proves that he can not only do the very thing he’s meant to critique, but also demonstrate that a lifetime of watching movies has taught him everything he needs to know when stepping into the realm of filmmaking himself, and in return giving him the tools to teach other aspiring filmmakers on how to do it for themselves.

His film is, for the most part, a strong and confident debut that takes a familiar concept and applies a solid layer of genuine suspense that more experienced horror filmmakers surprisingly neglect. However, after it reaches a certain point, the film falls into an unfortunate trap of genre conventions that it isn’t entirely able to climb back out of.

It opens with a format not unlike your typical true-crime documentary, this one diving into the unresolved mystery of Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn) who, along with fellow members of the YouTube paranormal investigation group known as the Paranormal Paranoids, went missing whilst filming on-location in the deserted town of Shelby Oaks. One of the interviewees is Riley’s older sister Mia (Camille Sullivan), whose recollection of their childhood together is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a man with Riley’s camcorder cassette tape in one hand and a gun in the other, the latter of which he promptly shoots himself in the head with. At this point, the mockumentary format is dropped entirely, and we focus solely on Mia’s own investigation as she, through clues she picks up on in the tape, sets out to uncover the truth as to her sister’s disappearance, not to mention who the strange suicidal man was and his own connection to Riley, and also how the occult plays a role in all of this.

The strongest section of the movie is, quite honestly, the faux-documentary format that precedes the opening credits. Clearly taking cues from The Blair Witch Project, District 9 and, of course, the dozens upon dozens of true-crime docs you’ve probably scrolled past on Netflix, Stuckmann nails the non-fiction aesthetic as well as the typical structural beats that you’d find in actual documentaries of this nature. Through various outlets like cinematography, editing and performance, he replicates the naturalistic tone of borderline exploitative true-crime documentary filmmaking so well that it would have been more than acceptable if the rest of the movie adopted this format, because while there have been plenty of found-footage horror mockumentaries in the past, some good and most others bad, few could claim to truly capture the genuine feel of non-scripted intensity as well as Stuckmann does.

However, the rest of the movie doesn’t adopt this format, and once it settles for a more straightforward narrative Shelby Oaks starts to noticeably sputter. In fairness, a large chunk of what follows that opening section isn’t all that bad; in fact, it’s actually quite effective, as Stuckmann has a fine way of establishing mood and atmosphere without going too overboard with the usual horror movie tropes. It’s a well-made film, particularly as cinematographer Andrew Scott Baird leans heavily into the overwhelming darkness surrounding our lead Mia, played with impressive about-to-soil-my-jeans expressions by Camille Sullivan, while the director allows a nice quick pace that leaves little flab in its wake. It may not be as stylistically interesting as the opening, but as a more standard horror film, the main body of Shelby Oaks shows that Stuckmann has it in him to create a real sense of dread and despair that makes a lot of other horror filmmakers green with envy.

But after a certain point, the film comes crashing down, and not even Stuckmann’s filmmaking passion can save it. Reveals become a lot more telegraphed while characters make increasingly short-sighted mistakes, and things are resolved with a surprising amount of ease, in such a short space of time that makes you wonder how incompetent the authorities must be if they can’t catch onto obvious clues that an amateur like Mia can easily spot. The ultimate ending, reportedly a major focus of costly reshoots following muted feedback from festival showings in its original form, goes perhaps a bit too far in its gore and nihilistic tendencies, to where it makes a large portion of the preceding story seem rather pointless in retrospect.

Although he doesn’t exactly stick the landing, Stuckmann proves himself to be every bit as formidable a filmmaker as the ones he regularly spotlights on his YouTube channel. With Shelby Oaks, he displays a strong understanding of what goes into a legitimate horror atmosphere and manages to craft something that, for at least two-thirds of the runtime, is not just effective but also outpaces many of the far weaker genre offerings. Whatever he goes on to do next, Stuckmann will no doubt continue to display as much confidence behind the camera as he currently does in front of it (on YouTube, anyway).

SO, TO SUM UP…

Shelby Oaks is a mostly strong debut by critic-turned-filmmaker Chris Stuckmann, who utilises his clear adoration for horror to create a genuinely unnerving atmosphere across numerous formats, though some overly clunky narrative decisions in the third act unfortunately bring it crashing down by the end.