Director: Chris Stuckmann
Stars: Camille Sullivan, Robin Bartlett, Sarah Durn
At this point I’m forced to wonder whether Mike Flanagan is doing this deliberately. Having already stuck a thorn in the year with the saccharine nonsense of his return to feature directing The Life of Chuck he now doubles down by exec producing potentially the most ill-conceived horror release, too. The determination of his miss ratio is almost as impressive as his productivity. Shepherding Chris Stuckmann’s directorial debut into cinemas, he feeds us a terminally uninspired and indecisive mishmash of at least a dozen more notorious movies, while Stuckmann himself seems irrevocably torn between presenting his tale as either a found footage mockumentary or a video game walkthrough, so frequently does Shelby Oaks look as though it was constructed in Unreal Engine. At its best – its very best – it feels like watching somebody else play a forgotten Silent Hill game. And it isn’t at its best very often.
The prologue is pure mockumentary, delivering us the requisite exposition. In the movie’s universe a YouTube show called ‘Paranormal Paranoids’ became a ’00s sensation; the ultimate fix for conspiracy theorists pining the end of The X-Files. Presented, seemingly, by four film students who would’ve failed the audition process for The Blair Witch Project, the series was such a cultural phenomenon that the group’s sudden mysterious disappearance gripped the entire nation (particularly its graffiti artists, for some reason). Years later, Mia (Camille Sullivan) – sister of presenter Riley (Sarah Durn) – still can’t let the disappearance go and is set to become star of her own documentary. That is until Riley’s kidnapper Wilson Miles (Charlie Talbert) suddenly commits suicide on her doorstep and the prior ‘found footage’ angle is swiftly given-up on altogether. We’ve not even hit the film’s opening titles and Shelby Oaks has evidenced a worrisome identity crisis.
Things spiral from there. Any sniff of verisimilitude has been whole-heartedly capsized, so it really doesn’t matter, I suppose, that the extremely-famous Keith David turns up for a single scene as a jaded prison warden. A good bit of effort went into marketing Shelby Oaks as though it were based on some genuine story (Insta accounts for the missing persons), which just seems bizarre when faced with casting choices like David. Once Mia has viewed Wilson Miles’ secret tape in which the presenters of ‘Paranormal Paranoids’ are all offed or stolen, we’re left to watch Stuckmann’s interminable cut scene play out, with Mia inexplicably doing all of her best investigative work in the dead of night as she pays a visit to the titular deserted town with nothing more than a malfunctioning flashlight.
The limp forward shuffle of Shelby Oaks is interminable, partly because there’s really no character to Mia beyond her sentimental snivelling, and partly because Stuckmann seems a little too preoccupied in how best to light eerie locales like abandoned prisons and fairgrounds while still ensuring that the screen is 90% pitch black. There are some elegant shafts of light captured along this ambling journey, I’ll give him that. But the bones of the story that unfolds are so dumbfoundingly derivative that remaining interested requires a concerted and generous act of will.
Before your eyes Stuckmann lifts freely from The Blair Witch Project, Rosemary’s Baby, Lake Mungo, The Omen, Hereditary, the fucking Annabelle films as well as, yes, survival horror video games like Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil. There’s not a modicum of originality to any of the revelations Mia uncovers and her lack of intelligence throughout is an overwhelmingly high hurdle. Stuckmann makes so much out of an instance in which she puts a weapon down and immediately forgets about its existence. I swear it’s as though he’s deliberately trying to goad his audience into getting frustrated. Unfortunately it’s about the only successful reaction his efforts do elicit.
Full disclosure; I had a little bit of A Time at this movie. The two teenagers next to me basically started fucking out of boredom (or possibly for warmth), and I also had to wander the building looking for a staff member so I could report that the light had been left on in the projection booth, casting a rectangular glow across the left-hand side of the screen. It wasn’t optimal. Perhaps in the five minutes I left the movie running it showed some genuine warmth, humour, humility or innovation? Something miraculously inventive that excuses the 85 or so minutes that surround it.
I rather doubt it though. There’s no clear underlying subtext here (other than, perhaps, don’t watch/be shitty YouTubers) just like there’s nothing you haven’t seen orchestrated better elsewhere. It plays like a compilation clip show from a parallel universe, or an overlong showreel someone meant to send as part of a job application that made it into multiplexes via an AI algorithmic snafu. Simply an empty and tiresome experience.
The Lost Highway Hotel 