YouTube Horror Creator Gets Movie Picked Up By Longlegs Studio

By Em Helena | Published

Nicolas Cage longlegs

YouTube creator Chris Stuckmann, best known for his film commentary, has recently had his debut horror film Shelby Oaks picked up for theatrical distribution. Neon, who has distributed films such as Parasite, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and most recently Longlegs, decided to acquire the film’s worldwide rights.

Shelby Oaks

shelby oaks

Shelby Oaks will serve as Chris Stuckmann’s directorial debut. In an announcement video uploaded to his YouTube channel titled “Shelby Oaks Has a Distributor!”

Stuckmann expresses that  “this honestly is everything that I’ve been working for since I was 14 years old and decided I wanted to make movies.” He also reveals that Shelby Oaks is estimated to have a theatrical release in the States sometime next year.

The Debut

shelby oaks

Shelby Oaks will debut on July 20 at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Quebec, the first step in its well-anticipated release. Much of the film’s production was made possible by a Kickstarter campaign created by Stuckmann in 2022.

In under a month $1.4 million was raised for the project and Stuckmann could finally bring his horror vision to justice.

Reminiscent Of Lake Mungo

Shelby Oaks is described as a crossover between the documentary and found footage horror genres similar to that of the 2008 title Lake Mungo. The film follows a woman named Mia, played by Camille Sullivan, on a search for her missing sister Riley, played by Sarah Durn who suddenly disappeared while filming her investigative series “Paranormal Paranoids.”

As Mia continues her search she starts to suspect that Riley’s imaginary demon friend from childhood is real.

Production

shelby oaks

Filming for Shelby Oaks began on May 9, 2022, and was shot at various locations across the state of Ohio. Post-production for the film ended up being suspended in 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, however, the film was finally finished in January of this year.

The film bolsters some impressive crew members such as horror aficionado Mike Flanagan who signed on as an executive producer.

Fans of Chris Stuckmann are ecstatic to see the success of Shelby Oaks. After years and years of producing content revolved around watching movies, he finally would be making one his own.

One supporter in the comments of his announcement video said “It’s so weird saying this but seeing Chris go from his “hilariocity reviews” to making a movie produced by Mike Flanagan and being picked up by a big distributor makes me feel like a dad seeing his son succeed in life. I’m proud of you Chris and I’m glad you’re dream is coming true.” Much of the rest of the comment section expressed the same sentiment.

Chris Stuckmann

It is not every day that you get to see someone make their dreams come true and we believe that, along with Stuckmann’s obvious talent, this is why so many people are talking about and celebrating Shelby Oaks.

For readers who are just learning about the film we highly recommend checking out Stuckmann’s YouTube channel to catch up on the development lore. So far a trailer for the film has not been released but we anxiously wait for its arrival.