Shelby Oaks begins with a thriller. A gaggle of younger adults calling themselves the Paranormal Paranoids, led by Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn), got down to examine an deserted amusement park for his or her YouTube channel. They’re by no means seen once more, although the story of their disappearance goes viral, turning them into cult web celebrities. A decade later, the world has principally moved on, however Riley’s sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) units out to resolve the thriller, and uncovers one thing really horrifying.
For Chris Stuckmann, who constructed a profitable YouTube reviewing motion pictures earlier than making the pivot to filmmaking with Shelby Oaks, this film is an exploration of childhood trauma and the best way it will probably worm its means deeper into our lives if we by no means face it head-on.
“All of us expertise issues in our youth that stick with us, some worse than others,” Stuckmann tells Polygon.
Forward of the movie’s launch, Stuckmann helped us break down all of Shelby Oaks’ largest twists and turns in what appears like one of the disturbing horror motion pictures of the 12 months. Shelby Oaks goes to some darkish locations. Fortunately, Stuckmann was sort sufficient to be our information.
Shelby Oaks explores themes of sexual assault. Beneath, we talk about the movie’s whole plot, together with a number of scenes from the ending which may be triggering for some readers.
Shelby Oaks and the Incubus
The thriller in the beginning of Shelby Oaks is ultimately traced again to an incubus, a male demon referenced in historical tradition and recognized for having sexual activity with girls, generally whereas they sleep. Within the movie, this explicit incubus has been stalking each Riley and Mia since they have been youngsters, gazing them by a cracked window in Riley’s bed room.
Years later, the incubus seizes the chance to seize Riley (and homicide all of her YouTuber buddies), and with the assistance from a household underneath its thrall, makes an attempt to impregnate her with its spawn.
The demon is simply revealed later within the movie, and Stuckmann says he needed to offer it a timeless design. “It must really feel like a wound that by no means healed.”
Early on within the improvement course of, he drew up his personal ideas for the incubus.
“I’ve a pocket book crammed with sketches I made that is actually disturbing,” Stuckmann says, “a pocket book crammed with loopy ideas and drawings and pictures that perhaps I will share at some point.”
He shared these sketches with Carlos Huante, an “unimaginable idea artist” whose credit embrace Dune, Blade Runner 2049, and Prometheus. Huante got here again with creature designs that “blew my thoughts,” Stuckmann says.
Subsequent, he labored with Jason Hamer, an Emmy-winning sensible results designer recent off Christopher Nolan’s upcoming saga The Odyssey, to design a monster go well with. And eventually, stuntman Derek Mears, who performed Jason within the Friday the thirteenth motion pictures, stepped into the costume.
“Derek has performed so many terrible individuals in motion pictures,” Stuckmann says, “however he’s the genuinely nicest, most angelic human being you’ll ever meet, who additionally occurs to be 6-foot-8.”
That scene with the photograph album
Close to the top of Shelby Oaks, Mia leads to an outdated home with an outdated lady named Norma (Robin Bartlett). Mia can inform she’s near discovering her sister — and he or she’s proper — however earlier than that may occur, she stumbles upon a group of pictures that reveal precisely what occurred to Riley after she disappeared.
The images present Riley being compelled to marry Norma’s son, a mentally unbalanced man who’s seemingly possessed by the satan (his violent suicide earlier within the movie kicks off Mia’s investigation). We see images of Riley posing whereas pregnant, after which images of her standing in entrance of a sequence of small graves outdoors the home, implying a number of miscarriages. It’s a disturbing revelation that performs out fully in silence, as if Shelby Oaks abruptly shifts from film to slideshow. However for Stuckmann, the photograph album was one of the simplest ways to ship this horrible twist.
“I feel that exhibiting, not telling might be the simplest means in any story to strategy one thing like that,” he says.
Earlier variations of the scene featured much more images. Stuckmann says they took “like 1,000 images,” lots of which have been reduce “due to how graphic and darkish they have been.”
The filmmaker provides that conveying this data by pictures additionally provides a second, subtler layer of horror to the expertise.
“The factor that disturbs me essentially the most about it’s: Most households who’ve a photograph album, it’s of their happiest, most cherished recollections,” Stuckmann says. “If you happen to take a look at this photograph album, and picture that this lady is doing that, placing her happiest, most cherished recollections on this photograph album, and then you definitely take a look at what she’s placing in it, that is actually fucked-up.”
Shelby Oaks’ ending, defined
Mia ultimately finds Riley and her child locked in Norma’s basement, and rescues them each. (Norma sacrifices herself throughout a ritual that the sisters witness.) However it is a horror film, so the blissful ending feels unlikely.
Again residence, all the things appears high quality. Riley is clearly traumatized, however seems to be recovering shortly. The infant is blissful and wholesome, regardless of being concieved by some form of demonic ritual paired with sexual assault. However that night time, Riley makes an attempt to homicide the infant, telling Mia that it’s evil and must be destroyed. Mia tries to cease her, and Riley falls out of the window of their home and dies.
In the meantime, the incubus steps out of the shadow and locations its hand on Mia’s shoulder. Mia screams as she realizes that she, not Riley, was the monster’s final goal all alongside. (The infant issues, too, I feel.)
For Stuckmann, that is the place Shelby Oaks’ core metaphor comes into play: the concept that childhood trauma can seep into our lives and take root. The incubus is that trauma, one thing that is haunted Mia and Riley since they have been youngsters, however by no means actually went away.
“All of us expertise issues in our youth that stick with us,” Stuckmann says. “Some have official childhood trauma. For others, perhaps we noticed one thing that sort of disturbed us, a picture we’re by no means in a position to get out of our minds.”
The damaged window in Riley’s childhood bed room additionally acts as an prolonged metaphor.
“This crack within the window has all the time been there,” Stuckmann says. “The best way I see that’s: If one thing occurs that creates a rift in us at a younger age in our lives, if we by no means attempt to repair it, if we by no means attempt to search for assist, if we by no means inform somebody about it, it is going to develop and it’ll spiderweb, and it’ll shatter us. It can ultimately eat us alive.”
It’s unclear what occurs subsequent. It’s arduous to think about Mia going together with the state of affairs she’s been positioned in, compelled to lift her lifeless sister’s demonic child. Will the incubus pressure her into subservience or just kill her, too?
Then once more, as Stuckmann factors out, Mia’s character says earlier within the movie that she needed a baby. So maybe she’ll in the end settle for this terrible cut price.
“Typically, to get one thing you need, you need to sacrifice one thing you’ve got,” Stuckmann says. “Each single character on this film goes by that in a roundabout way. The Paranormal Paranoids need fame; they get it. Mia needed a household. She ultimately will get one, however she sacrifices her sister within the course of.”
Shelby Oaks is in theaters now.
