I am a fan of Stuckman’s YouTube channel. His reviews often resonate with me and he’s clearly a genuine lover of cinema, particularly the horror genre.

So when I heard he finally made his film that he cowrote and directed and funded initially via Kickstarter, I was naturally excited to see it. You know… one of those “horror film made by a fan for the fans” kinda thing.

But then the first trailer dropped. Yikes, it lacked so much energy that I backburner-ed my viewing of it.

Well, after finally watching it tonight, I can see why I trusted my gut. It sucks to say this but, put simply, Shelby Oaks is a lame movie. There’s clearly passion on display for the making of this film. It doesn’t look bad at all and the music is standard fare (which is to say it was conventional but not bad). The acting is mediocre though and the writing is so rote and uninspired that it was more distracting than engaging. The main character does so many stupid, puzzling things that either make her look insane, put her in grave danger, or often both. The list of laughably bad decisions and actions starts early in the films and spans the entire runtime. I wasn’t angry at the film like I was with this year’s “Psych Killer” but I was genuinely irritated for much of it. And no one likes to intentionally spend 90 minutes feeling irritated.