A mix of Blair Witch Project, Ghost Hunters, and Rosemary's Baby, Shelby Oaks is mostly successful debut from a new writer/director. It stumbles occasionally and doesn't always balance its stylistic choices, but it certainly unnerves and gets under our skin. A test for a horror movie is whether or not its scary and Oaks manages to scare. It gets under the audience's skin and manages to be authentically creepy even if narratively there are some bumps along the way. It makes me excited to see what Stuckmann will do next.
The film does manage to fall into some cliches occasionally and borrows a lot from what has come before. But it also manages to take those things and work them into a fun spooky story, even if it is rather close to ones we have heard before.
Stuckmann shows a lot of potential here. He structures the story well, builds in the characters and underlying threads, pulling it all together into a satisfying if somewhat foreseen conclusion. But it does all come together and in the end has an unnerving quality that a film like this needs.
Shelby Oaks
Starring: Camille Sullivan, Sarah Durn, Brendan Sexton III, Michael Beach, Keith David
Writer/Director: Chris Stuckmann
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