Shelby Oaks (2025) Film Review: Decent directorial debut shows promise despite some noticeable pitfalls

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Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn) is one of four Paranormal Investigator YouTubers who go missing in the mid-2000s whilst investigating the spooky, abandoned fictional town of Shelby Oaks.

Twenty years later, new evidence reveals itself to Riley's older sister, Mia (Camille Sullivan), who becomes obsessed with tracking down her long-lost sibling.

However, through her meticulous investigations, she may discover that the imaginary demon from their childhood may, in fact, be real...

Shelby Oaks (2025) is a supernatural horror/mystery produced, written and directed by OG YouTube movie critic turned filmmaker Chris Stuckmann (with the support of his wife, Sam Liz).

An independent production, Stuckmann's feature-length debut was crowdfunded through a Kickstarter campaign, impressively reaching its initial funding goal of $250,000 within twenty-four hours. By March 2022, it had become the most-funded horror movie on the platform after raising $650,000.

Director, producer and writer Chris Stuckmann is one of the most recognisable names and faces in YouTube film criticism, with just over 2 million subscribers to his channel. He received much support from his loyal fanbase when he announced his branching out into feature filmmaking.

Fellow director Mike Flanagan, most well known for his Stephen King cinematic adaptations such as Doctor Sleep (2019) and, more recently, The Life of Chuck (2024), eventually came on board as an executive producer and mentor of sorts, having been impressed by Stuckmann's work ethic and determination to get his film made.

Although Chris's first feature is by no means a terrific success, suffering from numerous teething issues that do bog the overall quality down, one cannot help but admire this up-and-coming filmmaker for his clear passion for movies and his incredible journey to get where he is today.

This hour-and-a-half B-horror movie will no doubt inspire many to pursue their goals to break into the film industry, and it is living proof that it can eventually be achieved through dedicated perseverance and skill.

The movie begins with an intriguing mystery set up through a found footage/documentary format, which effectively provides exposition regarding the mysterious disappearances of the four young YouTubers and the police investigations which followed. The sequence is nicely edited and acts as a solid prologue to the narrative, presented through old-style videotapes and archival news broadcasts.

The film does have its issues in the writing department; however, Stuckmann is clearly competent and knowledgeable behind the camera, proving himself to be a sound director in his own right. He manages to craft a suitably atmospheric, chilling tone for the majority of the film, utilising dynamic camera shots, angles, well-staged set pieces, as well as creepy, dark lighting during nighttime sequences.

Chris demonstrates great restraint in presenting the workings of any possible supernatural forces, often relying on the tried and tested formula of 'less is more' by keeping things simple and steadily building an induced state of dread and suspense naturally. There are a couple of examples of some dodgy CGI use when it came to images, which could have easily been captured by using real animals, which was a tad distracting, but nothing too dreadful.

This independent horror production incorporates found footage/documentary style with traditional narrative elements to establish and build a suitably eerie mystery involving the disappearance of four young Paranormal Investigators

There are, unfortunately, a few too many jump scares placed throughout the film, which is disappointing considering the director's own past coverage of this major issue in horror movies himself in a popular video on his YouTube channel. These cheap gimmicks intended to shock the audience offer nothing which has already been done before in other genre films and are easy to see coming, so this aspect can be quite patience-testing for avid horror fans.

However, the movie does exhibit a good sound design with a nice use of silence in many scenes to effectively hold tension, as Mia desperately searches for her missing sister in abandoned prisons and dark woodland. The Newton Brothers, who previously worked with Flanagan on Doctor Sleep, composed the score for Shelby Oaks, which made a solid impact when needed to complement the unsettling supernatural angle of the story.

As has already been raised by other online critics, there are a couple of bizarre production choices which are quite glaringly obvious and do break one's immersion in the film.

The most major example comes when Camille Sullivan's character, protagonist Mia, as seen in the trailer, is splattered with blood when an enigmatic visitor shoots himself in the head on her doorstep. After such a harrowing moment, one would expect Mia to want to immediately wash the blood from her face; however, the poor actress is still seen with the makeup on, presumably hours after the event takes place, when she is later sitting on a sofa with her husband at night.

Another unforgivable moment, which is a prime example of a typical horror movie cliché, arrives when Mia is facing a potentially life-threatening situation, so she wisely arms herself with a kitchen knife, only to abandon it the second events appear to be turning in her favour.

Of course, these questionable actions could be justified by her state of shock and unsteady emotional well-being; however, these moments do come across as unintentionally humorous in execution and even had some viewers giggling in the cinema screening.

These easily noticeable issues largely equate to the film's biggest drawback, which is its cluttered screenplay. Both Stuckmann and his wife, Liz, tend to fall back on heavily seen-before horror tropes and predictable plot beats, which do drag the movie's overall quality down and result in a general lack of engagement with a formulaic narrative.

Camille Sullivan stars as Mia Brennan, the older sister of one of the missing YouTubers. As Riley's body was never found, Mia becomes obsessed with discovering the truth of what actually caused her sister's disappearance and, hopefully, rescue her from potentially demonic supernatural forces

Mia's actual investigation into Riley's disappearance is not as compelling as it could have been, due to repetitive usage of the found footage aspect, but the pacing does fortunately pick up again when she is physically searching for her sister.

Despite Sullivan doing a fine job portraying this grieving woman who will do anything to reunite with her sister, her character lacks sufficient development beyond this simple goal. She solely exists as a vessel to actively move the plot along, navigating between being afraid and sad most of the time. She does remain quite flat and generic throughout, and it is only the audience's natural empathy and compassion which would cause one to root for her.

The film also suffers from a jarringly rushed ending and, without giving away any spoilers, does, again, come across as more unintentionally humorous than anything else. The execution is pretty sloppy and is sure to divide viewers on how satisfyingly the story is actually wrapped up.

Additionally, the less said about Mia's husband, the better. Unfortunately, this poor guy is evidently not a good actor, and his line deliveries were pretty abysmal, but most of the blame must also be put on the script here. The movie would have actually largely benefitted without the inclusion of the character due to his complete lack of agency, placing more focus on Sullivan's performance and eliminate some later plot holes.

In the end, Shelby Oaks does admittedly have its many problems and has already received quite the negative treatment from several online film critics, but it is nowhere near as disastrous as some would lead you to believe. Yes, the movie offers nothing new for horror fans and suffers from a slightly awkward screenplay, but this is an overall promising start for Chris Stuckmann's filmmaking career.

He displays strong direction and a knack for orchestrating suitably creepy set pieces through reliable, simple means. There are definitely worthy elements to admire here, and we are looking forward to seeing how his creative vision evolves for his future projects!

Check out the trailer for Shelby Oaks (2025) below, and please let me know your thoughts in the comments!