Studio:   Neon
Director: Chris Stuckmann
Writer:   Chris Stuckmann, Samantha Elizabeth
Producer: Aaron B. Koontz, Cameron Burns, Ashleigh Snead, Chris Stuckmann
Stars:    Camille Sullivan, Brendan Sexton III, Keith David, Sarah Durn, Derek Mears, Emily Bennett, Charlie Talbert, Robin Bartlett, Michael Beach

Review Score:

Summary:

A woman’s investigation into her sister’s disappearance uncovers a demonic connection to an abandoned town’s haunting history.

Synopsis:

Using interviews and news clips, a documentary begins about the 2008 disappearance of Riley Brennan, the host of the ghost-hunting YouTube channel “Paranormal Paranoids,” who mysteriously vanished along with her partners Peter Bailey, Laura Tucker, and David Reynolds while investigating the abandoned town of Shelby Oaks in Darke County, Ohio. As the documentary’s featured interviewee, Riley’s sister Mia Brennan-Walker, who spent the past 12 years searching for Riley, discusses how her sister’s passion for the supernatural was influenced by Riley’s proclivity for having vivid dreams and night terrors. Mia also mentions that her and Riley’s mother used to regularly carve the two sisters’ initials, R and M, in triangular shapes on trees as a means for them to find their way home if they were lost.

In footage of her investigation into the derelict Darke County Correctional prison, Riley becomes inexplicably unsettled while in front of the cell numbered 37. Detective Allen Burke of the Darke County P.D. adds that the police investigation into Riley’s disappearance was particularly focused on an old Shelby Oaks amusement park that Riley and Mia visited with their mother as children, and Riley’s team had been investigating because it was now rumored to be haunted.

A frantic 911 call eventually led the police to discover the bodies of Peter Bailey, Laura Tucker, and David Reynolds gruesomely slaughtered in a remote cabin in Shelby Oaks. A triangular occult symbol was found smeared in blood on an outside wall. The last footage of Riley showed her frightened in her cabin bedroom, whose window recently cracked, prior to being abducted by a tall white male. In the footage, Mia hears her sister say, “Mia, he’s back” in reference to a dark figure that had seemingly stalked Riley since childhood.

While Mia takes a break from recording her interview, a man later identified as Riley’s kidnapper, Wilson Miles, comes to Mia’s door acting erratically. Wilson says, “She finally let me go” before suddenly shooting himself in the head. Mia recovers a small videotape labelled “Shelby Oaks” from Wilson’s hand, but she does not tell the police about it.

The tape’s footage shows Riley behaving as if entranced while in Shelby Oaks. Feeling as though she should leave, Riley still records at the amusement park, which she used to dream about when she was little. When she reviews the footage again later, Mia notices a dark figure behind Riley at the amusement park, which also features a tree caved with the sisters’ initials.

Riley’s odd behavior continues while she, Peter, Laura, and David stay at the cabin. Following unsettling howls, Riley’s three friends are attacked by unidentified animals. A man then assaults Riley. Mia recognizes the man as the same person who shot himself in front of her. Mia then sees her window crack just like Riley’s window did.

Detective Allen Burke returns to Mia’s house to tell her that the man who committed suicide was identified as Wilson Miles, who was born in Shelby Oaks in 1981. Wilson served time at the prison Riley investigated for her show, and he disappeared shortly after his release.

Mia still doesn’t tell the police about the tape she recovered. Mia explains to her husband Robert that she doesn’t believe the cops will continue looking into what happened to Riley now that she is presumed dead and their main suspect is dead too.

Mia’s research into Wilson uncovers newspaper articles about a prison riot at Darke County Correctional that resulted in 18 deaths. Inmates claimed the riot was caused by demonic forces. Additional research identifies the occult symbol found at Riley’s cabin as The Mark of Incubus. Further investigation into the symbol connects it to a demonic figure with glowing eyes who is protected by vicious hellhounds.

Mia interviews security consultant Morton Jacobson, who was the prison’s warden at the time of the deadly riot. Morton mentions that he saw strange things in cell 37, which was Wilson’s cell. Whatever caused the apparent supernatural activity also caused the building to rapidly deteriorate and eventually close, much like what happened to the rest of the seemingly cursed town.

After putting her research together, Mia tells her husband Robert that, following Wilson’s birth in 1981, Shelby Oaks almost immediately started losing residents, businesses closed, and crops failed. Soon, all that was left were the amusement park and Darke County Correctional, which began decaying once Wilson was incarcerated there.

Riley began having night terrors at age 13, which also coincided with Wilson’s imprisonment. Five years later when Wilson was released, Riley vanished.

Mia confesses that when they were younger, she once spent the night in Riley’s room to help her sister sleep. Although Riley slept fine, Mia saw a demonic figure scratching the window, but she never told anyone. Mia never saw the figure again until the footage of Riley at the amusement park, leading Mia to conclude the entity must have possessed Wilson in order to get what it wanted, which somehow involves the sisters. Disbelieving Mia’s conclusions, Robert tells his wife she needs help.

After seeing a dog with glowing eyes stalking her, and inspired by footage of her sister becoming unsettled while in front of Wilson’s prison cell, Mia searches Darke County Correctional alone. Mia finds her and Riley’s initials carved on a wall as well as the occult symbol above a reference to the demon Tarion.

A hellhound’s attack causes Mia to flee outside. Mia next searches a forest with another tree bearing the sisters’ initials. There, Mia meets an old woman named Norma, who invites Mia inside her remote, rotting house.

From a photograph, Mia realizes Norma is Wilson’s mother. Additional photos depict Wilson seemingly forcing Riley to participate in a pagan ceremony under duress, ultimately resulting in Riley becoming pregnant.

Mia demands to know where her sister is. Opening a concealed door in the floor, Norma says, “She’s been given the chance to touch greatness” before escorting Mia into a cellar. Finding a disoriented Riley being held captive in a cage, Mia frees her sister. Norma’s eyes glow as Mia leaves the cellar with Riley.

Instead of fleeing the house, Riley rushes upstairs to a room with a crying baby. Inside the room, Norma, who escaped the cellar unseen, performs a blood ritual over Riley’s baby while calling forth Tarion and asking for his hellhounds to guard the child. Riley tries rushing at Norma, but she uses supernatural powers to levitate Riley and crash her to the floor.

With the ritual complete, Norma uses her bloody hand to streak a wall carved with the sisters’ initials encircled by family photos oddly featuring Mia more than Riley. Norma collapses.

After recovering in a hospital, Riley and her baby go home with Mia. Since she and her husband had tried unsuccessfully to have a child for years, Mia warmly welcomes the newborn, although the baby’s presence causes stress for Robert.

Mia catches Riley attempting to smother the baby with a pillow. Riley tearfully claims, “It has to die.” The two sisters struggle over the pillow. The window suddenly cracks just before Mia inadvertently knocks Riley through it. Landing on the ground outside, hellhounds maul Riley to death. Mia screams in horror as her eyes begin to glow.

Review:

Longtime viewers of “found footage” horror are highly likely to think, “Here we go again” almost as soon as “Shelby Oaks” starts. Initially presented as yet another fictional documentary about a paranormal investigation gone wrong, a montage of faux news clips interspersed with talking-head interviews sets up a tale that’s seemingly been told countless times since “The Blair Witch Project.”

In 2008, Riley Brennan, host of the goofily named YouTube ghost-hunting show “Paranormal Paranoids,” disappeared along with her three content collaborators while recording in Shelby Oaks, an abandoned town located in ominously named Darke County, Ohio. Featured as the documentary’s key interviewee, Riley’s sister Mia fills in some blanks in Riley’s history by providing future clues concerning her sister’s proclivity for vivid night terrors, their mother’s habit of carving their initials as triangular shapes on trees, and a dark figure that had been haunting Riley since childhood. As this basic background builds, viewers digest a steady diet of “found footage” standards like a tearful first-person confessional, close-ups on Mia’s trembling hands, and clips of skeptical commenters calling Riley a phony while armchair sleuths offer their own theories via response videos.

Just when it seems as though “Shelby Oaks” will fully submerge itself in the drowning waters of “found footage” familiarity, the movie abruptly pulls the plug on that format. About 16 minutes into the runtime, Mia’s interview gets interrupted by an unexpected visitor who does something shocking, and “Shelby Oaks” immediately transforms into a traditional film. Anyone who has ever watched “found footage” and thought, “I wonder how this could play out if it were conventional instead,” can now experience firsthand what, if any, difference that makes.

Technically, “found footage” doesn’t completely go away. It’s just that when new video is revealed from this point forward, viewers watch it alongside Mia, who takes over as the film’s main player on a desperate quest to finally find out what really happened to Riley.

Mia’s search for her sister ends up taking Mia and the audience on a tour through a wide array of genre tropes. Locations related to Riley’s disappearance include a haunted prison, a deserted amusement park, a creepy cabin, and a remote house in the woods, i.e. some of the most common backdrops possible for a fright film. Scenes feature things like a nighttime search conducted by flashlight, a secret cellar hidden beneath floorboards, and more than one research montage, even one where newspaper articles whiz by like they’re on a microfiche machine even though it’s actually a computer.

All of these places and moments are then connected by the gradual uncovering of an occult conspiracy involving a demon, which sounds like one more cliché for the pile, though this is where “Shelby Oaks” manages to earn a reasonable amount of intrigue. Seemingly geared more toward horror newbies who aren’t as seasoned on these sorts of things, “Shelby Oaks” drops the right amount of mystery here and there to keep the story simmering. Add in engaging visual designs for dilapidated buildings like the decaying prison, a rotting woodland home, and a rusted Ferris wheel, and there’s ample atmosphere here where even an experienced veteran can see unsettling eeriness, never mind how commonplace its conception might appear.

Where “Shelby Oaks” does itself its greatest disservice is in not fully following through on the fiction. Already skating on thin ice with cynics who won’t take to the premise, the third act in particular opens wide gaps in the plot that are either overly cryptic or go completely unexplained. There’s no need for a tidy bow to lay all exposition on the table, but there are glaring holes that have an especially hard time holding up when looked back on with a “wait a minute” reflection.

In an earlier era, “Shelby Oaks” might have been able to earn a modestly higher score. The wide release year of 2025 is at least 10, if not 20 years past the peak when “found footage” frames and a mysterious disappearance in a cursed town were capable of attracting more attention from eager audiences. Because the movie is made with an appreciative eye for its obvious influences, open-minded viewers can still find worthwhile frights in between recycled narrative beats. More of a ”side of the road” stop than destination entertainment, “Shelby Oaks” would fit well in a midnight movie or faux documentary marathon, just not as the centerpiece draw.

Review Score: 60

Nov 17, 2025

SHELBY OAKS (2024)

More of a ”side of the road” stop than destination entertainment, “Shelby Oaks” would fit well in a faux documentary marathon, just not as the main draw.