The Reel Rejects - Well...Just Watched SHELBY OAKS!! Out Of Theater Reaction & Review! (Chris Stuckmann Movie)

Starting point is 00:00:00 From 20th Century Studios. Everything dies, but if that's not bad. On October 24th, discover why critics are calling Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere, an intelligent journey into the soul of an artist. I only need to be perfect. I just wanted to feel right. Golden Globe winner Jeremy Allen White. Trying to find some real and all the noise. Academy Award nominee Jeremy Straw.

Starting point is 00:00:21 You always do. Springsteen, Deliver Me From Nowhere. All Mean Theaters, October 24th. Check out the big stars, big series, and blockbuster movies. Streaming on Paramount Plus. Cue the music. Like NCIS, Tony and Ziva. We'd like to make up for own rules.

Starting point is 00:00:43 Tulsa King. We want to take out the competition. The substance. This balance is not working. And the naked gun. That was awesome. Now that's a mountain of entertainment. Regignation. I'm in a Ross parking lot right now to save money on very overpriced parking. Anyway, I just got out of watching the highly anticipated, especially in our YouTube space, Chris Stockman's new movie Shelby Oaks. In case you guys haven't seen the trailer, here's the basic setup. Shelby Oaks. There's this character named Mia. She's played by Camille Sullivan, and she's this woman who's searching for answers about her sister Riley, who vanished years ago, along with her paranormal investigator group. They're called the paranormal paranoids. And as

Starting point is 00:01:26 digs into this old footage and these forgotten leads. She's drawn back to this eerie town of Shelby Oaks, where the line between imagination and something darker grows increasingly more blurred. Now, before I dim to my thoughts and feelings, I want to be totally upfront about a couple of things. First, I was one of the many people who contributed to the Kickstarter that helped get this movie made, so I've been anticipating this film for quite some time. Second, I did have the fortunate opportunity to sit down with Chris himself for this very long, in-depth conversation about life, filmmaking, the journey's obstacles of being a YouTuber making that leap into feature directing. And at one point, we even talked about his

Starting point is 00:02:04 philosophy of not reviewing movies he doesn't like. I should have told him that if I don't like this movie, I'll have to be honest. Even though I've got to have that privilege with him, you're still going to get my real thoughts. That said, if there is any layer of bias here, here's what I think it would be. Doing all that research before speaking with Chris, it did give me a deeper sense of what this movie is about and why he made it. That pre-understanding, I would say, definitely enhance the experience for me. And being aware that it's his first feature as a writer-director did shape how I watched it. But even with all that, I feel like I'd be walking out with practically the same opinion either way, honestly.

Starting point is 00:02:36 The first thing I want to get major props to is the ambition and execution, though, of the writing and the directing. This film pulls off this fascinating blend. That's part-found footage, part-traditional horror, or part-traditional filmmaking, I should say. And that marriage is not easy. The tones of those two sub-genres are so different. transitions aren't handled well, it could feel like tonal whiplash. But Chris and his team, they managed to make it work. And honestly, the first time the film shifts gears, you could feel the whole audience react. It was kind of a badass moment, actually. A lot of the found footage in

Starting point is 00:03:05 true crime documentary segments, they felt so raw and natural that I assume they must have been improvised and cleaned up in the edit. Come to find out, turns out all of that was scripted. That shocked me when I found that out later, because I think it speaks to the naturalism of both the writing and the performances, that ability to make stripped of material feel messy. I mean, in a complimentary way, feel messy and authentic is one of the hardest things to pull off in horror.

Starting point is 00:03:30 Visually, this movie has this heavy, dreadful atmosphere, yet there's a very engaging pace to it. Like, it gets going into the ride pretty quick. There's a real style behind the lens, but it never tips over into showy for the sake of being showy. It walks that line where it looks

Starting point is 00:03:46 polished and often way more expensive than its actual budget, but still retains that grit. The practical effects are, they're genuinely unsettling, and when paired with the visual effects, you get moments that really crawl under your skin. And something I didn't expect to say, Chris and his team created a world. I literally had to Google afterwards whether Shelby Oaks is a real place in Ohio. I didn't even bother to think that. That's how convincing this movie is it selling its own mythology. It's like taps into that urban legend energy where you start wondering if this history is something based on an already existing something or another. I can't

Starting point is 00:04:18 find the word for some reason, but that world building is horror done right. And this film rests heavily on Camille Sullivan as Mia. She absolutely delivers. She's a woman who sacrificed so much of her own well-being in pursuit of her sister. The way Camille plays her is layered. Sometimes it's desperate, sometimes it's reckless, sometimes it's heartbreakingly strong. Early on, though, I did catch myself questioning her choices in that horror movie way of like, is she being stupid right now? Is she desperate? Is it both, you know, those moments for horror protagonists go off alone and you're like, come on. Come on. But the movie earns those choices by showing how isolated she is. No one supports her. No one believes her. So she has no choice but to

Starting point is 00:04:58 confront this darkness herself. And that flips a lot of horror cliches on their head. Friends, family, I wasn't raised what you would call financially literate. At the young age, we did lose her house. I have what you might call money trauma, I guess. So when it came to running a business here, I take that very serious. And I know how to run this business. But when it comes to investing outside of that, I've always felt scared. And that's why Acorns has been absolutely amazing. For you guys who don't know what Acorns is, it's a financial wellness app that helps you invest for your future, save for tomorrow, and spend smarter today all in one place. Favorite part, you really don't need to be like a finance

Starting point is 00:05:38 whiz. I use words like Whiz now. With just your spare change, Acorns automatically invest into an expert built portfolio. And they even have a checking account that invests as you spend and an emergency fund that grows your money over time before we signed up with them i remember distinctly one of our hosts roxy strier tell me once how her investment in acorns once really helped get her out of a very bad financial spot and that of course stuck with me so i went on the journey with them and it is nice opening up that app and i really love that you don't need like a big chunk of change you could start with such a small amount first month i started like with twenty dollars now i go with a hundred dollars because fortunate enough we can so reject nation

Starting point is 00:06:16 And you can sign up now at acorns.com slash real rejects. And Acorns will boost your new account with a $5 bonus investment. Because we're talking about money, I do have to say. Payne-on-clin, tier two compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorn advisors, LLC, and SEC-registered investment advisor review. You just coached at Acorns.com slash rejects. Thank you, Ian Acorns for being part of my financial wellness life. Instead of spending half the runtime being gaslit or dismissed as crazy,

Starting point is 00:06:36 Mia gets agency. She's afraid, yes. But she knows she has to move forward alone. That makes her a protagonist who actually root for. and when she's terrified, it feels so damn real. Those moments of fear help sell the scares tenfold. I also want to shout out Sarah Dern as Riley. Even though she only pops in intermittently, those moments have to land hard and they do.

Starting point is 00:07:00 Riley's journey is told in this non-traditional way, but Sarah nails every single beat she's in. I feel like this movie does balance character-driven dread with moments of genuine terror, terror and when it does aim for scares it delivers there were sequences where the entire theater went silent and then you'd hear that ripple of nervous laughter moving across the crowd that kind of nervous laughter you only get in a horror movie that's like a great communal horror movie experience i got genuinely scared a few times there are twists and turns that kept me on edge one twist in particular absolutely shook me i didn't see it coming at all and it's a kind of reveal i'll never forget it was the first thing i was talking with people about after the credits rolled the music and sound is design is great. The score, it deserves serious praise. It's unnerving, creative, and it feels like a legit horror score is considered the budget. Sometimes you expect that, but it's not. It's not just like stock sounds. It's not just like stock sounds pasted over scenes. It's a pair of that smart sound design and you've got tension that lingers. I always look out for sound design and indie horror because it's usually like the first thing that feels amateur, but here it's sharp,

Starting point is 00:08:05 calculated and Chris knows when to let the silence do the work. Although within the silence, it was like one beat that I thought was a little bit repetitive. It sometimes with Mia when she's like alone and something scary is happening, is a lot of that like, like she's like, she's like, she's scared and then she's this very slow turn to see what's behind her. I felt like that was a little bit of a too much of a repeat beat, but even though it was repetitive, still kind of got me every time. Anyway, all in all, Shelby Oaks, it did pretty much give me exactly what I showed up for. It's fun, it's creepy, it dips into that elevated horror territory without ever drowning itself and self-serious. It's smart, but it's not pretentious. It's stylish, but never masturbatory. However,

Starting point is 00:08:44 if I have one big critique, it's most noticeable shortcomings for me about in the last 10 to 15 minutes. Personally, I do think this movie could have used an extra 10 to 20. That finale has some awesome stuff, but in its final moments, a few things felt a little bit rushed, almost B-moving, and how quickly they were handled. Like, it's still entertaining, but I think a longer version could have made those beats hit a lot harder. It's tough to explain without spoiling. But for me, the last stretch didn't land as powerfully as the rest of the film. I heard someone say, especially about something else, that it felt tacked on. I wouldn't say that. Like, the choices definitely feel intentional. Like, that was always a part of the story. So it definitely wraps up the story.

Starting point is 00:09:24 But I did feel like we needed to live in some other stuff more, allow more breath. But I really can talk about it. When you see it, you know, maybe we can, we can argue about it. And in all honestly, it's a small gripe in the bigger picture. The journey itself is strong. Again, it's creepy, scary, atmospheric, it's ambitious. It made me tense, made me laugh nervously with the crowd. It shocked me at times, and it impressed me on a very, on a craft level. And for a debut feature, it's really impressive. So, yeah, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.

Starting point is 00:09:51 Kudos to Chris, in a weird way. I feel really proud of him. And I recommend you go watch Shelby Oaks. Leave a like on this video. Get Rejectinized. And it only works with Stuckman's words. Can't Stuckmanize him. He's got a thing.

Starting point is 00:10:05 All right. Yeah, this video is done.

The Reel Rejects - Well...Just Watched SHELBY OAKS!! Out Of Theater Reaction & Review! (Chris Stuckmann Movie)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.