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'Shelby Oaks' review: Horror tale is a tour through genre cliches

Adam Graham, The Detroit News on

Published in Entertainment News

There's an everything-all-in-one quality to "Shelby Oaks" that makes it feel less like a compendium of horror's greatest hits than it does a work of indecision.

The debut film from YouTuber-turned-filmmaker Chris Stuckmann — the Ohio native started posting film reviews on the platform in 2009 — throws a lot at viewers, from Satanic rituals to found footage setups to witchcraft, hellhounds and good old-fashioned jump scares. The result feels like an homage to other, more realized works rather than a singular vehicle for terror.

It starts off well. An assortment of newsreel clips introduces Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn), a popular YouTuber and host of the ghost-hunting series "Paranormal Paranoids," who goes missing after an investigation into the haunted Ohio town of Shelby Oaks. In this case, missing is preferred to the fate of her three co-hosts, who are all found brutally murdered.

The pre-credits setup is snappy and involving, mixing found footage and internet-style video clips, so it comes as a shock when, afterward, everything suddenly feels so standard and drab.

The movie picks up with Mia Brennan (Camille Sullivan) on the hunt for her missing sister, which eventually leads her to Shelby Oaks and through a gauntlet of horror cliches, from creepy stick formations to tree carvings to demonic old ladies to grainy figures lingering in the background of shots.

Keith David shows up briefly as a prison warden who helps Mia on her journey, and Brendan Sexton III is on board as Mia's concerned husband. But outside of a few nightmarish visuals, nothing makes enough of an impression to linger after the credits roll.

The specter of "The Blair Witch Project" looms large over the proceedings, but "Shelby Oaks" isn't able to conjure up the same level of atmosphere or dread as that seminal horror experience. The movie's loud jump scares stand out, if only because they startle viewers out of the long stretches where not a lot else is happening.

Stuckmann, who also wrote the film, crowdfunded "Shelby Oaks" and received backing from more than 10,000 donors. He's cultivated a core base of followers, and hopefully his next project serves them something more fully realized.

 

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'SHELBY OAKS'

Grade: C-

MPA rating: R (for violent content/gore, suicide and language)

Running time: 1:31

How to watch: Now in theaters

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©2025 The Detroit News. Visit detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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