The Reel Review
Twelve years after the host of a popular paranormal YouTube channel disappeared while shooting an episode of her show in the abandoned Ohio ghost town of Shelby Oaks, her older sister Mia comes across a video from that day that leads Mia on a disturbing journey to find her. Camille Sullivan and Sarah Durn star in this supernatural horror/mystery.
This low budget mashup of the found footage and mockumentary horror genres is different from most in that it actually has a clever, disturbing story – one that gradually reveals its creepy, supernatural elements like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. In his feature film directorial debut, You Tube movie critic and co-writer Chris Stuckmann incorporates chilling visual details (a recurring incubus in the background and hellhounds) that become more apparent as Mia watches the found footage.
A strong scream queen performance by Sullivan (Hunter Hunter) is aided by particularly well-done visual and audio effects and a clever subplot about the human tendency to disbelieve when we see unexplained phenomena. It’s an impressive first effort from Stuckmann.
REEL FACTS
• Shelby Oaks has the distinction of being the most funded horror film in Kickstarter history, raising about $1.4 million dollars. After NEON acquired the film, it set up three days of additional filming to shoot the particularly bloody scenes that Chris Stuckmann couldn’t afford in his initial budget.
• Chris Stuckmann is a You Tube movie reviewer with more than two million subscribers. In 2020 he gave an honorable mention to the film Hunter Hunter and its star, Camille Sullivan, whom he cast as the lead in his film.
• The abandoned prison scenes were filmed at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, which has been the setting for several films and television productions, most notably, 1944’s The Shawshank Redemption.
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