Shelby Oaks (2025) Review — Chris Stuckmann’s Debut Delivers Smart, Spooky Thrills

⭐️⭐️⭐️½ out of 5

Shelby Oaks

Directed by: Chris Stuckmann

Written by: Chris Stuckmann

Starring: Camille Sullivan, Brendan Sexton III, Keith David, Sarah Durn

Release Date: October 24, 2025

A Film Critic Turned Filmmaker

I’ll admit upfront — I’m not objective when it comes to Shelby Oaks. I’ve followed Chris Stuckmann’s career since his early days on YouTube, where he became one of the most thoughtful and entertaining film critics online. His passion for cinema, dating back to childhood experiments with a camera, always felt genuine.

So yes, I was rooting for him. And fortunately, Shelby Oaks gives me plenty to cheer for. It’s a confident, eerie, and emotionally grounded horror debut. Stuckmann doesn’t try to reinvent the genre — instead, he embraces it with love, crafting a movie that’s both creepy and compassionate.

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The Story: A Haunting in the Age of YouTube

The story follows Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn), host of a YouTube channel called Paranormal Paranoids, where she and her friends explore haunted places. Riley has always been drawn to the supernatural — since childhood, she’s sensed a dark presence she can’t explain.

Years before the movie begins, Riley and her team vanished while filming in a decaying Ohio town called Shelby Oaks. Only fragments of their footage remain.

Her sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) becomes the emotional center of the film. When a true-crime documentary crew revisits Riley’s disappearance, Mia reluctantly participates — until a mysterious stranger shows up at her door with new clues. What follows sends her deep into the abandoned ruins of Shelby Oaks, retracing Riley’s final steps through decaying buildings, eerie forests, and the echo of a digital ghost story gone too far.

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Tension, Style, and Scares

Stuckmann’s filmmaking instincts are sharp. The movie begins like a true-crime documentary, morphs into traditional horror, and crescendos with a frantic, handheld finale. He uses pacing and tone shifts deftly to build dread, showing a keen awareness of what makes low-budget horror effective.

Shelby Oaks feels lived-in and grounded. Its scares come not just from ghosts, but from the emotional toll of grief, internet exploitation, and the blurry line between real tragedy and viral sensation.

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Camille Sullivan’s Standout Performance

Camille Sullivan delivers a powerhouse performance as Mia. Her eyes alone carry the weight of the story — haunted, hopeful, and filled with pain. Sullivan captures both the desperate love of a sister searching for answers and the exhaustion of someone living in a world that turns loss into content.

Her performance grounds the film’s supernatural elements in real emotion, making the final act more affecting than expected.

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A Horror Movie About Humanity and the Internet

One of the film’s smartest touches is its brief but clever commentary on YouTube culture. Stuckmann populates an early portion of Shelby Oaks with real-life YouTubers and creators, using the ecosystem of conspiracy videos and viral mysteries to show how easily empathy is replaced by entertainment.

The viral hashtag “#WhereIsRileyBrennan” becomes both a plot device and a critique of the way we consume true crime and ghost stories — detached, curious, and complicit.

It’s an ambitious idea for a debut, and Stuckmann mostly nails it.

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Final Thoughts

Maybe I’m biased — I probably would’ve found reasons to like Shelby Oaks no matter what. But even setting that aside, this is a confident, atmospheric debut. It’s scary when it needs to be, moving when it wants to be, and smart throughout.

Chris Stuckmann proves he’s not just a critic who loves horror — he’s a filmmaker who understands it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️½ out of 5

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