Perhaps it’s due to his love of horror, but Chris Stuckmann has been fearless in the production of his film, “Shelby Oaks.” Days away from its Fantasia Festival world premiere, he admits, with a laugh, that thinking about the crowd reactions has “been on my mind for, probably, five years.” Luckily, he has crafted a bold feature that can stand alongside many of his favorites.
A lifelong filmmaker — he directed his first feature at 15, and it was “about a magical baseball diamond, inspired by ‘Field of Dreams’” — Stuckmann gained fame as an early YouTube celebrity, a devout and sincere film critic who has amassed over two million followers since launching his channel 13 years ago. Starting his criticism career by sitting on his bed in front of two “Dark Knight” posters, Stuckmann kept his crisp criticism accessible to average moviegoers — even as his backdrop and camera grew more professional.
Soon enough, his life as a professional YouTuber allowed him to quit his day job as a school bus driver. But he was always writing personal projects and developing short films on the side. True inspiration struck while he was filming his then-annual Halloween special in 2016, in which he rented a cabin in the Tennessee woods with his wife, Samantha Elizabeth, to talk about — appropriately enough — “cabin in the woods” movies.
“We did this whole wraparound sketch about a masked, knife-wielding maniac in the woods who is trying to kill us,” he says. “It was told from the perspective sometimes of the killer, and sometimes of us, and we did it ourselves. We didn’t have a crew. It’s one of my most fond memories with my wife. On the way home from Tennessee, we had a six-hour drive back to Ohio, and we were talking, and we realized that was easy and fun, and we were both very tired of waiting at that point to get something made. We had tried for a very long time to get something off the ground, and it just wasn’t happening. And we decided, ‘let’s just try to self-finance something told from the perspective of missing YouTubers.’”
That idea became “Shelby Oaks.” After developing the concept more, Stuckmann had a meeting with Paper Street Pictures during Fantastic Fest 2019, and the project started rolling along. He gained even more motivation when a March 2022 Kickstarter campaign he launched to add more days to the shoot, as well as pay for essentials like keeping the crew compensated and getting the right gear, flew past its $250,000 goal in two days, ultimately ending up with $1,390,845 from 14,720 backers.
Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
While Stuckmann is keeping “Shelby Oaks” plot points under wraps to keep its twists and turns vibrant, the film follows a woman who tries to find her sister, a YouTube paranormal investigator who has been missing for 12 years. Given the topic, fans don’t know much about what kind of film would emerge: WIll it be fully handheld? Shot like a YouTube video? Be filled with slang and in-jokes about online culture? While Stuckmann and his cinematographer Andrew Scott Baird play with form and structure a bit to advance some story elements, “Shelby Oaks” is a decidedly cinematic affair. Shots are blocked intentionally to juice the tension out of scenes both scary and dramatic in ways far beyond most online content.
“[Baird] was one of the primary reasons I realized we probably should launch a Kickstarter,” Stuckmann says. “Early on, as we talked, we realized we weren’t going to have the funds needed to accomplish what we’d love to do. It was through his encouragement that I was like, ‘All right, we should probably try this,’ because the shot list we were building and the storyboards we were making were just more ambitious than we initially thought. It was through very long discussions for weeks at a time with Andrew, just looking at other examples of what could be done in the indie horror space, and really just learning how much certain things would cost.”
Once shooting was off the ground, Stuckmann says the crew was engaged in the project that, despite his internet fame, he never worried about being labeled as anything other than filmmaker on set.
“On day one, I was very aware of the fact that I’m sort of new to this, so to speak,” he says. “At least that’s the perception: This is the first time I’ve ever done anything behind a camera, even though I’ve been making movies since I was a kid. That’s okay, and I understood that. I wanted to reassure people from day one. We had this whole speech that we gave about making sure people felt safe and reporting anything that made them feel uncomfortable, but also you can come to me with any problem you might have. Or also anything that you have as an idea that you might see, or something you might think could be valuable for a scene. Oftentimes, we used many of those ideas that people came up with, because I felt that the movie is a collaborative experience.”
“Shelby Oaks” has picked up two massive seals of approval in the horror community in the last few weeks: The announcement that “Haunting of Hill House” creator Mike Flanagan signed on as an executive producer, and that red-hot distributor Neon acquired the film — coming days after the successful opening of Oz Perkins’ “Longlegs.”
Flanagan and Stuckmann have been acquaintances ever since the filmmaker reached out about Stuckmann’s review of his 2013 film “Oculus.” From there, the pair began a correspondence and Flanagan offered to read one of Stuckmann’s spec scripts.
“He gave me notes and feedback, and it was extremely valuable,” Stuckmann says. “That sort of
changed the relationship into talking about nerdy shit, but we were also doing notes and feedback on scripts and things like that.”
By the time Stuckmann did the Kickstarter campaign for “Shelby Oaks,” Flanagan reached out to see if he could read the script and was engaged with the project.
“I came back and asked him for notes on the very first rough cut of it,” he says. “From that point, he was like, ‘How can I help?’ From there, it’s been a great blessing.”
In an email to Variety, Flanagan says he was “impressed with Chris’ work ethic, his intellect, his talent and his determination.”
“I watched his Kickstarter campaign for ‘Shelby’ with great interest as it really took off,” he continues. “I financed my own little movie ‘Absentia’ via Kickstarter back in 2010, and this brought that roaring back in my memory. His determination and DIY attitude really reminded me what it felt like when I was starting out. I watched his fundraising videos and thought back on my own Kickstarter campaign, and what it was like to try to make your own opportunities in a business that is very difficult to break into. He was out there pounding the pavement and getting it done, throwing everything he had at this dream, with the combined efforts of his friends and family, and it just inspired me.”
As for the Neon deal, Stuckmann says he feels like a kindred spirit with the team.
“They love movies,” he says. “At our meeting in person, it was just a bunch of references to movies we love. They love films so much and they care about the filmmaker, too. They wanna make sure that everyone who’s involved is excited about making movies. It’s kind of strange to say, but it’s just a warm, safe place.”
As for the future, Stuckmann is focused on filmmaking and slowing the YouTube reviews, but he’s always excited to advocate for great movies with his platform. But he’s also hoping to use YouTube to illustrate the actual nuts and bolts process of making a movie, so more audiences can understand the toil that goes into a feature.
“If was a perfect world, I could keep making movies and occasionally talk about movies I love, but also
share behind-the-scenes with the people on my channel about whatever I’m working on,” Stuckmann says. “Let them into the filmmaking process in a way that maybe hasn’t been done as much. My ultimate goal is to be able to lift the veil a little bit and show people how a lot of these things get done, because a lot of folks who talk about how movies get made online do tend to sugarcoat or brush over some things.”
Flanagan says he was happy to offer any support he could to his friend on his journey to get “Shelby Oaks” made.
“There was so much about Chris’ experience and story that reminded me of what I went through early in my career,” he says. “He’s on a really exciting path, and it has been a pleasure to share a few small steps with him on his way.”
Courtesy of Chris Stuckmann
