Score: 4 / 5
Much will be said of Chris Stuckmann's pedigree and history, yet apart from its inspiration, these things will be said to effectively limit Shelby Oaks, its scope, and its impact. I've yet to hear much response to his feature film debut that isn't couched in some kind of condescending tone that heavily references his years-long passion project and its troubled history or that hinges on something to the effect of "well, once Mike Flanagan joined the creative team and Neon picked it up, then it became a real movie." And I think that's a shameful approach to film criticism. Historicizing can be cool, and it can provide insight, but as soon as you use it to limit and control what the art does and what it means, that context ceases to be useful or believable. After all, a film made by a lifelong fan and critic is going to reference other movies. Most movies do, anyway, regardless of their maker. At least this one makes those references not only obvious and fun, but also crucial to the story being told.
Starting with a faux-documentary a la Lake Mungo or Noroi, Shelby Oaks details the rise of the Paranormal Paranoids, four young YouTubers investigating haunted places, who suddenly go missing in the titular ghost town. Bodies of three are found, along with some of their footage, but Riley Brennan and the second camera are nowhere to be found. As with The Blair Witch Project and its subsequent franchise, this story follows someone eager to find the missing person and learn what happened to the Paranoids. Riley's older sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) is convinced Riley is still alive somewhere, even now, twelve years after her disappearance. This seems wildly unlikely to me, but since that's the only serious jump I had to make to suspend my disbelief, I leapt and was better for it. Once we're in the film proper, Stuckmann has a hell of a story to spin, so you'd better get on board.
There is another version of this film that doesn't feel so dated and that engages in an earnest conversation about how found footage can operate in the twenty-first century and how we, as mindful viewers, should engage with videos of questionable authenticity. Media literacy is in crisis, and a film like this could bravely showcase a side of things we don't normally see while forcing us to grapple with social media algorithms, ever-listening phones, and the specter of artificial intelligence. That's very much not Stuckmann's project here, but I wonder what follow-ups might do in that regard, as the film seems to be breaching between the boundaries of urban legends and ghost towns and our dwindling post-millennial obsession with paranormal web series. Actually, it's not wholly unlike some of Flanagan's early work in that regard of suggestively reaching into a wider conceit without fully engaging, like in Absentia or Oculus.
I won't spoil any plot points here at all, because this film is a bona fide mystery, eager to suck you in and reveal itself in sinister turns. Needless to say, we will find out what happened to Riley -- and why -- and it's probably not what you're expecting. Stuckmann's premise, apart from the Blair Witch of it all, is quite original and hybridizes some key points that feel disparate until later. As Mia investigates, she eventually goes to a prison and an abandoned amusement park, both of which also refer to other iconic horror stories. There has obviously been a killer, and there may be a kidnapper, but beyond that, Stuckmann allows us to think there are ghosts, demons, monsters, and all manner of horrors before film's end, and some of those prove to be true. All predicated on a primary plot distinctly reminiscent of Prisoners or Barbarian, these things begin to take on fantastic lives of their own, so that just like Mia, we are searching through limited available evidence to establish a rational way out of this mystery.
To be fair, rationality may not be the key element of this film, and Stuckmann does sacrifice rich character development (or even realism) in favor of some rural Gothic adventuring. I don't mind that, generally, and Mia's nighttime escapades make the movie pretty amazing. It's just not reasonable for Mia to be this obsessed with her missing sister for over a decade; we're even told it has ruined her marriage and might have something to do with her inability to become pregnant (which she fervently wants or, perhaps, wanted). It's also not reasonable for her, after being scared out of her mind by the inciting incident of a crazed man delivering her the missing tape before fatally shooting himself on her porch, to not call for backup or even leave a note before launching into a nocturnal investigation at abandoned places that would be dangerous even in broad daylight, without demonic dogs hounding her steps.
And while Sullivan delivers what she needs, I couldn't help but wonder why the screenplay didn't let her do more. Or perhaps why she felt so one-note. She's just kind of always there, shuddering and grimacing and looking, rarely speaking or acting proactively. It's a stoic performance of a kind we almost never see leading a horror film, and it freezes us in place when it should mobilize us into reacting to the frisson. Indeed, I found myself reacting to Stuckmann's well-crafted and effectively employed scares more vocally and physically than Sullivan does. She just keeps her head swivel going, like an owl on an old clock, and it's up to us to search the shadowy surroundings for what might have made the alarming noise.
It might have been going for, simply, too much. The whole subplot of the prison is fascinating, and Keith David's bit part is really effective. But the film pivots again after this, and its final act is a frenetic experience in its own right, tonally led by a terrifying Robin Bartlett, veering close to what Ann Dowd provided in Hereditary. For a plot to take place in a single, hellish night, I'm glad this didn't become a shitty web miniseries; its episodic narrative needs dramatic unity to make sense, and in a single film, it does. It took me some time to get into the story, but by the climax and finale, I was locked in and on the edge of my seat. Stuckmann's technique as a filmmaker might be half-baked as of yet (I'm not sure this is fair of me, but it is a sometimes wonky film; that said, his visuals are stunning and occasionally beautiful, like Mia's foray into the prison block, which looks like something out of Bergman or Fulci, atmospheric and Gothic, as if the ruins itself breathes contagion), but his instincts as a storyteller are fabulous, carrying this material through to the glorious cinematic release it always needed. Seeing this on a big screen in the dark with surround sound is the only way to appreciate what he's done here, and it deserves to be appreciated.
