By David Dent
As a first feature pop YouTube critic Chris Stuckmann’s debut – which did the rounds of festivals last year and is only now getting a general release – is striking, frightening and maddening; sometimes all at the same time.
An opening puts us on familiar (found) footing; a quartet of amateur parapsychological podcasters, the Paranormal Paranoids, have gone missing while investigating the abandoned and severely creepy town of Shelby Oaks, which comes complete with a deserted, fire ravaged funfair and cavernous disused prison.
While the group have had some success in filming their previous exploits, the Shelby Oaks investigation results in tragedy; three of the four end up dead with the fourth, Riley Brennan (Sarah Dorn) missing. One final piece of film exists to show, murkily, what might have happened to her.
Riley’s sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) is interviewed for a documentary on the whole incident – which takes place some years after the podcaster went missing – telling of her younger sibling’s history of night terrors; we get the feeling that Riley may have foreseen her fate. While filming, Mia receives a visit from a stranger, with terrifying results; and then the opening credits roll!
Audiences have become used to being thrown almost immediately into a state of heightened tension (something that was called ‘elevated horror’ for about five minutes) but this pre credit sequence is a masterclass in getting an audience in the mood, so to write.
Sadly everything that happens afterwards is somewhat of an anticlimax, often relying on jump scares instead of real, sustained terror. Disbelieved by her husband, who in turn acts rather inconsistently, as she puts the pieces together (and hides others) Mia resolves to do what the police apparently haven’t been able to do in the 12 years since Riley went missing; find her. The subsequent search brings her, Silent Hill style, to an almost imaginary terrain of abandoned buildings and ominous noises, not to mention creepy characters. After all that promise, the explanation follows a path trod by a number of recent movies, which will only be shocking if you’ve not seen any of them, and characterisation remains paper thin throughout, which doesn’t help.
There’s no denying Stuckmann’s ability to construct atmosphere and creepiness in bite sized chunks, but there are just too many elements at work, and I longed, if not for a simpler narrative, then a less tricksy way of telling it. Along the way the director mounts a series of very impressive set pieces and some lovely visual slights of hand, but ultimately, I wasn’t convinced. But oh, that first 20 minutes!
Shelby Oaks is out now in UK cinemas.
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