Starring Camille Sullivan, Sarah Durn

Written & Directed by Chris Stuckmann

Intrepid Pictures / Neon – in cinemas now

When Riley disappears while filming a paranormal YouTube video, her sister Mia’s desperate search turns to obsession as she realises that the imaginary demon from their childhood may have been real.

Students of cinematic technique will be familiar with the Kuleshov Effect whereby the audience infers meaning from the juxtaposition of otherwise unrelated images. When Mr Kuleshov cut between the expressionless face of an actor and a bowl of soup, the audience concluded that the character must be hungry. However, cutting to an attractive lady on a couch, the viewers were convinced of the actor’s unbridled lust.

In the final reel of bemusing horror flick Shelby Oaks, director Chris Stuckmann juxtaposes shots of a supposedly violent demon (looking unfortunately like a charred bunny rabbit) and a chortling baby – eliciting guffaws of laughter from the audience. To be fair to Mr Stuckmann, Shelby Oaks might have been a slog if it hadn’t been so wonderfully amusing.

It’s an ungainly beast, starting out as a found footage and ‘desktop’ movie – also employing constructed ‘documentary’ sequences – in an over extended pre-credits sequence. This goes on for so long, that when the opening titles finally roll up, and it switches to a conventionally dramatic film, I assumed it was a clever meta parody, showing how ‘factual’ content is melodramatically dramatised by cliché obsessed movie makers. ‘Ah! Interesting!’ I thought, until I realised that this was the actual film I was here to see and I was supposed to take it seriously.

Shelby Oaks is a film that takes itself very seriously, whilst having very little grasp of how to tell a story that builds through the interactions of characters, the introduction of jeopardy etc. Instead what we are offered is a string of extremely similar sequences where the hapless Mia (Camille Sullivan) walks up to things VERY SLOWLY before being surprised by something dark and demonic. After the third time it’s easy to feel a tad impatient with the woman.

What follows is a sort of Rosemary’s Baby/Deliverance incubus mash-up concluding in a lame M Night Shyamalan twist. Aside from the many unintentional laughs along the way – and some gloriously hammy acting – I started to feel sorry for the Dark Lord himself whose ambitions in spawning a child next to a deserted fairground seemed to smack of satanic underachievement.

Verdict: Shelby Oaks is daft as the bristles on a witch’s broomstick and most definitely not scary. 2/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com