'Shelby Oaks' - Film reviewers coming for their turn again.

Josh
Dec 1, 2025
4 min read

Chris Stuckmann (2025)

Click right here and get Stuckmannized.

Ahhhhhhhh… the French… new wave. A pivotal moment in cinema history where film reviewers from France took a critical view of American cinema and said, “Fuck it, I can do better.” And after watching Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless for the first time recently, it’s amazing to see someone completely reinvent the medium. The aggressive and loose editing. Complex characters with these grey morals, but suave in a way that’s addictive to watch. Unique fourth wall breaks. Small details like the whipping of a lip with a thumb. After spending time watching a bunch of silent films from 1904 to the 1930s, it was insane to see this jump into experimental territory. Modern-day equivalents of these French visionaries would be the online critic. And most of the larger critics have taken it upon themselves to make short films within their reviews, whether it’s some of the worst colour grading and execution you’ve ever seen in your life from the Nostalgia Critic. Or the polished yet over-the-top shorts from Red Letter Media and their self-deprecatory shitty movies. While on the topic, you can even point to the SNL-looking action film from The Critical Drinker. Apart from the RukkaRukka boys with the widely praised Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, have other YouTubers successfully broken out of the online space? The latest attempt to break free of the YouTube chains is Chris Stuckmann. Backed by Neon and produced by Mike Flanigan. If you’ve seen his work, you’ll notice some of his fingerprints. However, despite the backing of these horror giants, Stuckmann's attempt at a genre hybrid horror film falls flat.

Shelby Oaks (2025) courtesy of Neon. — *Shelby Oaks* (2025) courtesy of Neon.

It begins as a Netflix-style murder mystery show, covering the disappearance of Riley (Sarah Durn) and the murder of her friends when filming a video for their YouTube channel, the Paranormal Paranoids… This segment follows a blend of found footage via the YouTube videos and talking head interviews with her sister, Mia (Camille Sullivan ). It’s at the end of the first act do we break this mould and we turn into a more traditional movie. In a pretty stylish open sequence, which is where the Flanaganisms kicked in. After this inciting incident, the movie lost me. There’s an attempt to link Riley’s childhood to her current-day fascination with the paranormal, but it didn’t hook me. There was no wow moment, nothing that hit me where I thought I needed to show others this.

The whole second act felt like it went on for hours, as Mia and her husband Robert (Brendan Sexton III), follow in the footpath of Riley. Which again, feels like he was going for a Hereditary (2018) type dynamic with Mia being crazy in this outlandish set of events, with Robert being as straight as an arrow. Trying to ground the situation, however, there wasn’t enough with the two to explore the dynamic that deeply. It’s not until the ending did I actually perk back up. Now, it wasn’t good when you stand back and look at the movie as a whole. It felt disconnected and not very satisfying as a reveal, similar to my feelings about Longlegs (2024). But it was so over the top compared to the rest of the movie, I found it very entertaining. More so, as something was happening. Sprinkled throughout are moments of horror like this that are effective. Moments of gore with the visuals of the early 2000s camera were decent. That’s all I can think of.

The blocking and framing of scares at times felt very Flanagan. Especially if you’re a fan of Midnight Mass. There are moments where we see eyes glowing in reflections and within the background. Despite the fine acting from our two leads, especially from Riley towards the end, it didn’t help that they had little to no character. There wasn’t much we knew about Riley other than that she liked scary things and she had spooky dreams as a kid. Her sister doesn’t do much else behind her other than wanting to find her sister. Everything just felt one-dimensional. The posters from Neon are once again pretty cool. Well done, Neon marketing team.

What I have tried to avoid talking so much about is the YouTuber Stuckmann angle. But that is the only interesting thing about this movie. Managing to create something on a micro-budget of a couple of million and then getting the Neon backing is pretty commendable. And I’ll admit I was pretty excited to see the movie because when I first started to delve into movie-making and watching review after review to learn more, he was one of the originals I started with. And I remember him saying he was making a movie. And I remember him saying he got Keith David and Mike Flanagan on board. It was a journey I pseudo-followed. The destination sadly wasn't worth the wait.