Whether you want a job done right, or just done right now , do it yourself. That’s the fearless edict uniting first-time feature filmmaker Chris Stuckmann and his headstrong final girl Mia (Camille Sullivan) in the winding mystery of “ Shelby Oaks .” An ambitious horror exploration born of the found footage format, which honors genre but rarely attempts to subvert it, this spooky procedural unearths a new kind of cold case for Neon — this one, fittingly acquired on the heels of the viral “Longlegs,” still running away with the box office now in its second week .
When four internet ghosthunters known as the Paranormal Paranoids find trouble in an abandoned town, three turn up dead and the last (Sarah Durn) is never discovered. “ Who took Riley Brennan? ” graffiti across the surrounding Ohio area wants to know 12 years later. It’s very Derry and just one of many warm details that make Stuckmann’s universe, smartly but subtly shaped by EP Mike Flanagan, feel closer to a Stephen King joint than a “Paranormal Activity” successor.
The police and public might be useless here, but Mia won’t give up. She doesn’t know if she believes in ghosts; what she does know is that her sister isn’t a liar. A true crime documentary picks up where the grainy footage recovered from the victims’ camera leaves off — examining the dead investigation through the eyes of a dogged loved one operating outside of a broken system.
Something similar could be said of Stuckmann.