Review: Shelby Oaks (2025)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5)
Shelby Oaks arrives with the promise of being a bold, reality-bending descent into supernatural paranoia — and to its credit, it starts like a film ready to do something ambitious. Unfortunately, that ambition gradually dissolves into a muddled, uneven experiment that never quite figures out what it wants to be.
One of the film’s biggest missteps is its refusal to commit to a storytelling format. It swings between cinematic sequences, faux-documentary interviews, and found-footage snippets with little sense of cohesion. Rather than enhancing the mystery, the constant stylistic switching becomes a persistent distraction. Instead of blending forms into a unified whole, Shelby Oaks feels like three different movies spliced together, each one interrupting the flow of the last. The result is a jarring viewing experience that undermines the narrative tension the filmmakers are clearly striving for.
Even more disappointing is how quickly the film falls back on overly familiar tropes. From the haunted-house beats to the missing-person rabbit holes to the predictable third-act spiral, Shelby Oaks borrows from so many predecessors that its early spark of originality gets smothered. What starts as a promising premise erodes into a greatest-hits compilation of genre clichés — the jump scares you see coming, the ominous clues that lead nowhere, and the side characters who feel like echoes of better films.
And then there’s the ending. Rather than offering a payoff to the buildup, the film leans into ambiguity in a way that feels less thoughtful and more like a narrative shortcut. Shelby Oaks leaves more questions than answers, but not in the haunting, lingering way effective horror often does. Instead, it feels like the story simply refuses to explain itself, dodging the responsibility of resolving its own mysteries. It’s another example of modern horror mistaking vagueness for depth.
In the end, Shelby Oaks becomes yet another entry in a genre desperately in need of a shot of originality. There’s talent here, and moments where you can see what the film could have been, but they’re lost in the noise of tropes, tonal whiplash, and unanswered questions. A promising idea that deserved a more confident — and more cohesive — execution.
