- Content: “Ghost Hunting Leads to Demonic Domination”
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What You Need To Know:
SHELBY OAKS is full of ups and downs, as every notable thing comes with a negative. The good acting is offset by bad writing. The characters do incredibly stupid stuff, even for a horror movie. The movie’s opening is interesting, but the rest of the movie comes up short. By far, the best aspect is the suspense, which is well done. However, the scares devolve into a series of jump scares. Worse, the movie’s abhorrent occult worldview is dominated by demonic activity, which isn’t overcome. SHELBY OAKS also contains extreme, scary violence and a fair amount of strong foul language.
Content:
Very strong occult worldview about hunting ghosts from the beginning where the paranormal activity involved a supernatural presence that was actually a demon, the demon does possess/control people and isn’t stopped or banished, even though the heroine is trying to rescue her sister, who’s been missing for 12 years (new clues suggest she was kidnapped by a man who has just committed suicide);
20 obscenities (including 10 “F” words), three strong profanities using the name of Jesus, and two GD profanities;
Very strong and strong, often scary, violence with blood includes a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, stomping a person’s head, being wrestled out a second story window and eaten by dogs/hell hounds, as well as cutting down an arm to let blood drain out, and people are lifted into the air and thrown around a room due to a demon;
No sex scenes, but it’s stated that one couple tried to have a child, but it never happened, and another character is pregnant multiple times (this character is being held hostage);
No nudity;
No alcohol use or abuse present;
No smoking or drugs; and,
Strong miscellaneous immorality overall includes breaking and entering, abduction, lying, and greed where a character eventually makes a decision based on their own greedy, selfish desires.
More Detail:
The movie starts off with a found footage beginning. The plot centers around a YouTube group that went missing. The group was known as the “Paranormal Paranoids.” The group consisted of four members. The only notable one for the movie’s purposes being a ying woman named Riley. She was the main host of the series where they explored haunted/abandoned areas. Mysteriously, they all went missing in Shelby Oaks. Some of their viewers just thought it was some sort of prank they were playing between episodes, but that was proven not to be the case. A man walked into his cabin to see three members of the team murdered, but Riley couldn’t be found. The police were able to find one camera showing a scared Riley. That’s all that came of the investigation, which ran into nothing but dead ends.
Twelve years later, Riley’s sister, Mia, is making a documentary about her missing sister. After taking a break from speaking on camera, her doorbell rings. The man at the door says, “She finally let me go,” before putting a gun up to his head and pulling the trigger. In the man’s other hand, he’s holding a cassette tape for a camcorder. The tape is titled “Shelby Oaks.”
After recovering from the man’s suicide, Mia plays the tape he was holding. It was the second camera’s footage, showcasing the events leading up to the death of the group and the abduction of Riley.
In the footage, the group decides to take a foray into abandoned towns. They explore Shelby Oaks, but Riley starts to get bad feelings about it. After visiting an abandoned amusement park, they find themselves inside a home, with a figure outside walking around the building. Panicked, they don’t know what to do but end up staying the night.
Soon enough, the man returns and kills the other members before taking Riley. At the end of the found footage, it’s revealed that the man is the same person who shot himself at Mia’s front door.
The story progresses from there with Mia learning more and actively setting out to find and save her sister.
Sadly, SHELBY OAKS is aggressively mediocre . Every aspect has both good and bad filmmaking. For example, the movie has some good acting but terrible writing, with the characters doing really stupid things. Also, the plot has an interesting set up but a poor conclusion. Perhaps the movie’s strongest point is its suspense, but most of the horror toward the end was just one long jump-scare. Ultimately, the entertainment quality of SHELBY OAKS is a journey through peaks and valleys. This likely will leave viewers frustrated trying to expect more out of movie that was so clearly a thoroughly thought-out passion project.
SHELBY OAKS is dominated by an occult worldview. In the beginning, it’s evident that some kind of paranormal activity is happening. However, as the story develops, it becomes obvious there was not just a supernatural presence. Instead, the supernatural presence is actually a demon. This demon did possess/control characters and isn’t stopped or overcome. So, SHELBY OAKS is abhorrent and unacceptable.
