Shelby Oaks and the Case of the Unwashed Face

Shelby Oaks

★

Shelby Oaks is a film written and directed by YouTube star Chris Stuckmann. Production began in May 2022 after a successful Kickstarter campaign secured the necessary funding. It’s a mix of found footage, dramatic mockumentary and straight narrative filmmaking. As the film gets going, the storytelling styles blend surprisingly well together. It’s a promising start for a genre long plagued by bad decisions—both on and off the screen.

Riley (Sarah Durn) and her fellow YouTubers Lara (Caisey Cole), David (Eric Francis Melaragni), and Peter (Anthony Baldasare) are paranormal investigators. Their channel is called the Paranormal Paranoids. It’s their last case that has the internet in a tizzy. Then, the Paranormal Paranoids stop posting videos and go silent. The comments on their channel cry hoax—and some other words I shouldn’t write here. But five days later, a formal investigation is launched and national interest in their whereabouts takes hold.

Sarah Durn as Riley
© 2025 NEON, Intrepid Pictures, Paper Street Pictures, Title Media

Mia (Camille Sullivan) is Riley’s older sister. She’s being interviewed as the film begins. Riley has been missing so long the case has gone cold. At the time of Riley’s disappearance, Mia and her husband Robert (Brendan Sexton III) were trying to start a family. When Riley goes missing, Mia loses interest in having children and it appears to have fractured the marriage.

When new evidence comes to light, Mia takes it upon herself to retrace Riley’s last moments. Of course, she hopes to find her alive.

Charlie Talbert as Wilson Miles
© 2025 NEON, Intrepid Pictures, Paper Street Pictures, Title Media

The pacing, cinematography, and overarching storyline work together to create a sense of dark brooding. It’s consistent throughout the film and sets the mood a story like this requires. But the finer story details, questionable production choices, and horror-heroine ‘don’t-go-into-the-basement-alone’ no-no’s drag the story into the ground.

Let’s start with the guy who shoots himself in the head on Mia’s front porch. Certainly, it’s an important point in the story. He’s holding a mini-DV tape with “Shelby Oaks” written on the label. Not only is the tape now covered in blood, but so is half of Mia’s face.

That blood remains on her face for hours.

From the police involvement to the removal of the body, not even the paramedics can be bothered to suggest she get cleaned up—or at least change her shirt. After the authorities leave the house, she still hasn’t washed her face. It’s now nighttime and she watches the entire DV tape. It should be a riveting scene as we get some disturbing insight as to what happened to Riley. But Mia still hasn’t wiped off the blood.

She talks with Robert in the hallway afterward. He doesn’t seem to care that her face is still spattered. When he gives her a hug, she turns and puts her face on his shoulder…blood-side down.

Camille Sullivan as Mia
© 2025 NEON, Intrepid Pictures, Paper Street Pictures, Title Media

I just simply couldn’t move past this. I wanted to jump out of my seat and cry out, “For the love of cinema, will someone please give this poor woman something to clean her face with?” It would’ve been fine if I did. I was the only person in the theater.

It’s just dumb and unsanitary, and I spent the next 20 minutes wondering why no one on set thought to nudge Stuckmann and say, ‘Maybe we should do something about the blood.’

I know. Move on, right?

Robin Bartlett as Norma Miles
© 2025 NEON, Intrepid Pictures, Paper Street Pictures, Title Media

Chugging right along: she hangs on to the tape instead of giving it to the police. Her reasoning seems fair at the time. Until you give it a little more thought. She doesn’t want them to treat the evidence like it’s no big deal, as she feels they’ve botched their investigation thus far (despite them making every effort to find Riley). Because of the point I just beat to death, I’m now hyper-aware of the film’s stupid elements.

A horror genre kiss-of-death.

Why the hell didn’t she preview the tape, or make a copy, and then turn it in? But no. Mia knows better than the police detectives, so she decides to obstruct justice. Gotcha.

And why doesn’t Mia bring her husband to the abandoned, decrepit prison? That takes ‘don’t go into the basement alone’ to a whole new level of stupid.

The thing is, Stuckmann drives the incoherent elements of this film with such confident gusto, no one seems willing to tell him about the brick wall he’s barreling toward. It took me so far out of the story that the only thing I pondered by the time the credits rolled was my sudden need to stock up on wet naps.