Here we have a momentous occasion. Nowadays there’s a server full of voices ready to give you their latest movie opinions, but with legs stretching back for over a decade, there are few like RedLettterMedia, Chris Stuckmann, and Jeremy Jahns. Now, Mr. Chris Stuckmann has transcended simple movie reviews, and getting “Stuckmannized” can occur the silver screen. It’s been widely agreed that Stuckmann’s reviews have become tepid in align with his leap to the class of Hollywood directors, but don’t discount those left behind. I, for one, genuinely want Stuckmann to succeed, but it doesn’t mean I won’t discuss this movie openly and honestly.
A group of paranormal investigating teenagers go missing, last seen visiting the dilapidated and abandoned town of Shelby Oaks. Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn) has always had a heightened connection to the supernatural, and she had been becoming increasingly fearful of the group’s venture out to dark places. Survived by her sister, it seems Mia (Carmille Sullivan) is the only one left with the animus to get to the bottom of Riley’s disappearance, with the police having exhausted their search. When new evidence is presented to Mia, she will go it alone and enter Shelby Oaks.
Through little fault of its own, it’s sadly true that Shelby Oaks has been scooped by recent movies like Longlegs, Barbarian, and even Heretic, using extremely similar themes and imagery, and fails comparatively. Yet, I firstly must champion the way the movie begins as found footage before becoming a competently directed modern production – I don’t know if I’ve ever seen both modes incorporated together like this before, and I really liked it. Horror movies always have the challenge of getting the audience to invest in the protagonist and the actions they take, and again, Shelby Oaks is on a winner – I quite enjoyed Carmille Sullivan’s performance, and when Robert (Brendan Sexton III) asks his wife why she didn’t hand the tape over to the police immediately, her answer made sense, and now she must find Riley herself. Hell yeah, Mia, I would do that too! Actually, nah, I’m a sissy-ass pansy, so I probably wouldn’t. But the thought is there 🥸 I was skeptical when Mia decides to go investigate the Shelby Oaks’ prison alone, at night 😨, without at least trying to recruit a camera operative or demonic expert first, but I suppose I can chalk it up to her having no friends, or a rush of adrenaline-fueled impatience. Then from there, comes my first innate instinct that something about this movie might be lame… The movie lost my concentration for around 20 seconds, and I never engaged with Shelby Oaks the same way again. Because before this, the emergency exit sign and me were becoming best friends – the emergency exit sign is where I look when a movie’s tension is too terrifying, and Shelby Oaks was delivering, especially in scenes where Riley is staring at the cabin door, or while Mia explores the prison cell. But unfortunately, one such occurrence marks a time when Shelby Oaks was never scary again. Want to know what happened? The hell hound reappears to snarl at Mia, and the demon grabs the dog by the scruff as if to say, “leave her be.” Does a demon have to physically restrain a dog to command? Either way, the action seemed to hint that the demon was leading Mia down a specific path, which I thought was already blatantly obvious and heavily implied. It’s a small moment, but albeit my first chink, the first cerebral crack in my bedroom window.
The movie is clever to not completely reveal the monster more than necessary – sure, sometimes I want to see the contender, mostly in alien or animal movies, I find; but paranormal movies do get an easier pass on keeping what our characters see hidden in the ether. Creature designs can make or break believable reality, and I’ll always remember how the final boss in Smile completely took me out of it 😄 What I don’t like, however, is how this movie isn’t about demonic baby possession until it is! The first half of Shelby Oaks sets up a missing girl, a decaying town, an entity looking through a window, and a deliciously appetizing mystery. But then, the movie becomes a mother and son impregnating a girl in a cabin 😒 And a town is no longer deserted if two people live there 🙃 My favourite part of the movie, up until a point, had actually been when Mia is relaying her hurried supernatural conclusions to her husband, only for the camera to pan over to an empty crib and for Robert to remark, “where does the time go?” – it seemed like such a left-field, character-centered, human response, for an otherwise fairly unnecessary figure in this movie, which I found to be richly dense and insightful storytelling. Oh, but no, that moment turns out to be one of the only intentional forewarnings as to where this movie is heading, and how Shelby Oaks has always been about babies 😔
Then as the movie ends, I’ve never wanted more to audibly roar, “is that it?!” Initially, I wasn’t sure if the ending even made sense, because if the movie is implying that the demon has always used Mia to get what it wants from the first moment she saw it in the window, it really hasn’t, until she started looking for Riley in Shelby Oaks. And is that it? Hardly your Shyamalan twist! The demon is now inside the house, and I guess that’s a new development, but enough for this movie to hang its hat on? I don’t think so. It’s a really pedestrian second half, and I’m disappointed. I hope this movie isn’t baiting for a sequel either because I doubt it’s going to muster the eagerness to get it. The movie is never explicit about the purpose the demon has with a possessed baby, and there’s a line about how Riley’s mother brought Riley to Shelby Oaks when she was a child that is never resolved. Apparently, Riley has also been missing for 12 years, when the depth of this story could really be said to have covered 2-3 years max, so what else has Riley been doing, hmmm? 🤔 As a passion project, and a directorial debut, I found this movie to be really terrific up until a point, but then my enthusiasm nosedives from a cliff without a bungee cord. The story cannot sustain the spark of the set-up, and from a guy who has dedicated his life to extricating cinematic and storytelling techniques on the internet, I truly hoped for something more vibrant. (I didn’t even write about how a demon baby would even make it into Mia’s house in the first place, when it’s believing in the dangerous supernatural that led to Mia finding Riley in the first place. Or how the baby is placed by the window – the demon’s known point of inquiry. Seems like some avoidable bad juju there) But Shelby Oaks is not Ed Wood. It’s not Tommy Wisseu. It may be only a modest beginning or a big dream filled. I suppose I’ll just have to tell my bellyaching to Zod’s snapped neck (sorry, had to).
To finish, I want to discuss the phenomenon of knowing a director’s influences ahead of their debut. It’s a strange circumstance we find ourselves in. Usually, if you notice a first-time director pay homage somewhere, it may come as a cute little Easter egg or intrigue, but being familiar with Stuckmann, we know he loves movies like The Blair Witch Project, and The Sixth Sense, and so there’s almost an expectation that some of that will be in here. And so, when you see it, you say, yes of course. It’s a similar feeling to when watching a comedian after you’ve spent time with them on their podcast – they commence a premise by saying, “so I’ve been thinking about this recently…”, and you say, yes, I know. It’s the way the internet has closed the gap on personal connection to creators – it removes some of the spontaneous freshness, and reveals more of the inner bones of stylised mechanics. It’s not necessarily a good thing, or a bad thing, but unique to this day and age. Me, I could just see Stuckmann saying in one of his reviews, “…and then she leaves the knife behind …” in a critique of a plot such as this. And maybe he wouldn’t, but it’s interesting how I feel like I know what he might say, as the analyst voice behind the camera. Shelby Oaks.
2.5
Leave a Reply