Shelby Oaks | Film Review

 

A woman (Camille Sullivan) becomes obsessed with finding her missing sister (Sarah Durn), leading her to uncover a horrifying secret.

The only thing I knew about this film was that it was a debut movie by a director who is also a movie critic that I’d heard of. I didn’t have any thoughts about this in terms of the perceived quality of the movie, but it did make me more interested to see it.

I didn’t love this one unfortunately.

The concept was really interesting, though when it starts it has a really similar feel to The Blair Witch Project, which makes it feel a bit less original than it probably should.

It would have been nice to get to know the characters outside of Mia (Sullivan) and her sister, as I never really connected with either of them. And as much as you don’t need to care about them for the film to work, it would help.

It probably would have been better to see this story from someone else’s point of view. I don’t think Mia brought much to the story. If we saw this from the point of view of an outsider, there would be more to learn about this group and more interest in what’s actually happening, rather than how it affects the characters.

Speaking of which, adding the video crew also did nothing for the story.

The movie is quite slow and not much happens.

To me, it tried to be too many things. Either make it about the occult and rituals, or make it purely about the supernatural demon – it didn’t really make sense for it to be about both things.

The acting wasn’t particularly great, save for a select few actors (aka Michael Beach and Keith David).

The outcome cheapened the story to me. After all that talk of the paranormal and the amount of explanations that were set up, what really happened was a bit disappointing.

This also would have been a great story for a twist. There was definitely something weird about the sister that didn’t get explored in enough detail.

Overall this one was an okay watch, but there were definitely things I disliked about it, and I don’t think it’s one I’d watch again.

4/10