Shelby Oaks starts with a riddle. A group of young people calling themselves paranormal paranoids, led by Riley Brennan (Sarah Dern), set out to investigate an abandoned amusement park for their YouTube channel. They were never seen again, although the story of their disappearance went viral, turning them into cult internet celebrities. Ten years later, the world has largely changed, but Riley's sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) sets out to solve the mystery and discovers something truly terrifying.
For Chris Stuckmannwho created a successful film review system on YouTube before moving into filmmaking with Shelby OaksThe film is an exploration of childhood trauma and how it can seep deeper into our lives if we never face it.
“We all experience things in our youth that stay with us, some worse than others,” Stuckmann tells Polygon.
Before the film's release, Stuckmann helped us sort out all the details. Shelby Oaks“the most unexpected twists in one of the most disturbing horror films of the year.” Shelby Oaks goes into some dark places. Luckily, Stuckmann was kind enough to serve as our guide.
Shelby Oaks explores themes of sexual violence. Below we discuss the entire plot of the film, including a few scenes from the ending that may excite some readers.
Shelby Oakes and Incubus
The mystery at the beginning Shelby Oaks ultimately traced back to the incubus, a male demon mentioned in ancient culture known for having sexual intercourse with women, sometimes while they were sleeping. In the film, it was this incubus that had been stalking Riley and Mia since they were children, gazing at them through a cracked window in Riley's bedroom.
Years later, the incubus takes the opportunity to capture Riley (and kill all of her YouTuber friends) and, with the help of the family in his captivity, attempts to impregnate her with his offspring.
The demon is only revealed later in the film, and Stuckmann says he wanted to give it a timeless design. “It must be like a wound that never healed.”
Early in development, he developed his own incubus concept.
“I have a notebook full of sketches I’ve made that really bother me,” says Stuckmann, “a notebook full of crazy thoughts and drawings and images that maybe I’ll share someday.”
He shared these sketches with Carlos Huante, an “incredible concept artist” whose credits include Dune, Blade Runner 2049And Prometheus. Huante came back with creature designs that “wowed me,” Stuckmann says.
He then worked with Jason Hamer, an Emmy Award-winning practical effects designer. The Coming Saga of Christopher Nolan Odysseyto create a monster costume. Finally, stuntman Derek Mears, who played Jason in Friday the 13th, stepped into the suit.
“Derek has played so many terrible people in movies,” says Stuckmann, “but he really is the nicest, most angelic person you'll ever meet, and he's 6-foot-8.”
That scene with the photo album
Towards the end Shelby OaksMia ends up in an old house with an old woman named Norma (Robin Bartlett). Mia can tell she's close to finding her sister – and she's right – but before that happens, she stumbles upon a collection of photographs that show exactly what happened to Riley after she disappeared.
The photographs show Riley being forced to marry Norma's son, a mentally unstable man who is apparently possessed by the devil (his violent suicide at the beginning of the film sets off Mia's investigation). We see photos of Riley posing while pregnant, and then photos of her standing in front of several small graves outside the house, implying several miscarriages. This disturbing discovery occurs in complete silence, as if Shelby Oaks suddenly switches from movie to slideshow. But for Stuckmann, a photo album was the best way to convey this terrible twist.
“I think showing rather than telling is probably the most effective way in any story to approach something like this,” he says.
Earlier versions of the scene had even more photographs. Stuckmann says they took “about 1,000 photographs,” many of which were cut “because of how graphic and dark they were.”
The director adds that conveying this information through photographs also adds a second, more subtle layer of horror to the proceedings.
“What worries me most is that most families have a photo album, these are the happiest and most cherished memories,” Stuckmann says. “If you look at this photo album and imagine this woman doing this, putting her happiest, most cherished memories in this photo album, and then look at what she puts into it, it really is complete nonsense.”
Shelby Oaks' ending, explained
Mia eventually finds Riley and her baby locked in Norma's basement and rescues them both. (Norma sacrifices herself during a ritual that the sisters witness.) But this is a horror film, so a happy ending seems unlikely.
Everything seems to be fine at home. Riley is clearly injured, but appears to be recovering quickly. The child is happy and healthy, despite the fact that he was conceived as a result of some demonic ritual combined with sexual violence. But that night, Riley tries to kill the child, telling Mia that it is evil and must be destroyed. Mia tries to stop her, and Riley falls out of the window of their house and dies.
Meanwhile, the incubus emerges from the shadows and places a hand on Mia's shoulder. Mia screams, realizing that she, and not Riley, was the monster's main target from the beginning. (I think the baby matters too.)
For Stuckmann, this is exactly the place where Shelby OaksAn underlying metaphor comes into play: the idea that childhood trauma can seep into our lives and take root. The incubus is a trauma that has haunted Mia and Riley since childhood, but has never gone away.
“We all experience things in our youth that stay with us,” Stuckmann says. “Some have actual childhood trauma. For others, perhaps we saw something that disturbed us, an image we can never get out of our heads.”
The broken window in Riley's childhood bedroom also acts as an extended metaphor.
“This crack in the window has always been there,” says Stuckmann. “The way I see it is, if something happens that creates a rift in us at a young age, if we never try to fix it, if we never try to get help, if we never tell anyone about it, it will grow and become a web and destroy us. It will eventually eat us alive.”
It's unclear what will happen next. It's hard to imagine Mia coming to terms with the situation she finds herself in, forced to raise her dead sister's demonic child. Will the incubus force her into submission or just kill her too?
On the other hand, as Stuckmann notes, Mia's character says earlier in the film that she wants a child. So maybe she'll accept this terrible deal after all.
“Sometimes, to get what you want, you have to sacrifice what you have,” says Stuckmann. “Every character in this movie goes through this in some way. Paranormal paranoids want fame; they get it. Mia wanted a family. She ends up getting it, but she sacrifices her sister in the process.”
Shelby Oaks is now in cinemas.
