There’s a reason that so many new filmmakers make their mark with a horror movie. In part it’s logistical; horror movies are cheap to make, easy to sell, and are frequently lapped up by a famously forgiving fanbase. So when popular YouTube movie critic Chris Stuckmann announced he was writing and directing a movie, it wasn’t a surprise that his first film would be in the horror genre. But more than that, Stuckmann had amassed record breaking crowdfunder backing, to the tune of a $650k strong Kickstarter campaign, which eventually swelled to over $1M with the help of horror movie A-lister Mike Flanagan acting as an executive producer and presumably a guiding hand in some matters behind the camera.

The film centres around the disappearance of a group of YouTube Paranormal Investigators, who went missing in 2008 while filming in the abandoned town of Shelby Oaks. In a turn that echoes The Blair Witch Project, a single camera’s worth of footage is found, as well as the horribly savaged bodies of three of them. The film footage shows the one remaining YouTuber, Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn) leaving a room in an abandoned house, and later a strange unknown male figure walking through the frame. Over a decade later, Riley’s sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) is still looking for her sister, and new evidence sends her back to Shelby Oaks to investigate by herself.

In the event that you stumbled into Shelby Oaks with no foreknowledge of its backstory, then you’d be forgiven for assuming it was simply another C-list found footage horror film, the likes of which abound on the streaming services, and the opening act of the movie does little to dispel that assumption. That’s right up until an unexpected moment sends the plot and the film’s style spinning off in a new direction. The opening 20 minutes set up the movie like a found-footage mockumentary, in the vein of Lake Mungo, or Savageland, only to take an abrupt swing into the form of a conventional horror movie. It isn’t a unique idea, as films like [Rec] 3: Genesis, and One Cut of the Dead have played with this format-shift before, and that’s one of the biggest issues with Shelby Oaks, its sheer unoriginality.

It’s almost impossible to watch the film without seeing clearly that almost every idea is pillaged from a better classic horror movie, or are as rote and hackneyed as they come. From the town itself feeling like a fogless lift from Silent Hill, to the glowing-eyed Omen-like hellhounds, it just feels too familiar. Similarly the found footage sections feel directly like a mishmash of Slenderman and its YouTube series precursor Marble Hornets, with a dash of Blair Witch , even down to retro style website whathappenedtorileybrennan.com mimicking that franchise’s own marketing move from back in 1999. There are also visual nods and cinematographic homages to the work of Ari Aster and the script steering itself evermore into the territory of Rosemary’s Baby as the film gets closer to the end.

That’s not to say it’s a film without merit. If nothing else, Stuckmann is clearly a competent helmsman and a workmanlike director. The cinematography, by Andrew Scott Baird looks good throughout, riffing on the colour palettes and compositions of horror films as disparate as Hereditary, and The Ring. At its worst the film is still passably watchable, and at best has some moments of genuine thrills and skin-crawling creepiness. A few sequences build tension in a way which works well, and the general look and sound of the film is solid. There’s also a delightful turn by Robin Bartlett, playing deliciously against type and chewing the scenery like crazy as a batty old woman who lives in the town. But that only goes some way to take away the taste of the moments where the actors clearly aren’t being steered into good performances, with some notable crunchy line readings, and a worthless cameo from Keith David, where he looks so disinterested that his presence actually distracts and detracts from the film.

It’s also a film that is surprisingly dark in subject matter. Even though the script trips itself by revealing far too much early on, and doggedly repeating information over and over during its surprisingly plot-thin story. It does at least mean that there are a few payoffs for fans of gore, or disturbing horror, but they’re not really worth the time it takes to watch it. It feels like the barebones of a longer better movie, or a short film stretched out too long, with far too few characters, no subplots and an awful lot of walking around with a torch peering at things in the dark, or searching buildings in silence. Whether that’s a result of the budget being stretched too thin or simply the script being underbaked is hard to say, but even for a $1M movie, it feels lacking in depth.

If you’re on the hunt for a good horror movie, there are countless better horror movies out there, from which this film pillages relentlessly, you’d be advised to seek them out instead. Shelby Oaks is a fundamentally mediocre and painfully thin horror movie, which is best enjoyed by horror movie completists and those who are curious to see if Stuckmann’s occasional YouTube short movies could be turned into a successful film career. Make your own mind up there.

On General Release