Chris Stuckmann is a movie critic and author with a channel on YouTube that has just under 2 million subscribers at the moment, and now he's set to make a movie of his own. Paper Street Pictures has hired Stuckmann to write and direct the mystery horror film Shelby Oaks, about
a group of missing paranormal investigators.
sponsored contentThe project will chart the story of a fictional mid-2000s U.S. paranormal investigative team called The Paranormal Paranoids. Multiple found footage videos have surfaced online in recent months which have prompted horror and ARG (Alternate Reality Game) fans to speculate about the veracity of the case and the whereabouts of the investigators. One video uploaded last week appeared to show the abduction of one of the group, known as Riley.
Along with the synopsis came a link to reddit, where the Paranormal Paranoids footage is being discussed.
According to Deadline, Paper Street "leapt on the fan following for the online fiction" and got Stuckmann signed on to "steer the project creatively in his feature debut". Paper Street CEO Aaron B. Koontz said,
I had been looking for the right project to partner with Chris on for a while, and when I fell down the rabbit hole of this scary little story, quickly emerging right in Chris’ backyard of Ohio, with an intriguing and quickly growing YouTube element baked in, I knew we had to act fast on the perfect vehicle to launch Chris as a feature filmmaker. The videos and mystery are scary enough, but the ideas we have for where this can go, are truly frightening."
Stuckmann added,
It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to finally get a film off the ground and when Aaron and I began discussing the potential of this story we immediately jumped at it. There is a reason so many of my fellow YouTubers are talking about this. Shelby Oaks is going to be something fresh yet deeply unnerving."
I would have guessed that the footage that already appeared online was some early marketing for this project, but the Deadline report makes it sound like this is only happening in reaction to that footage. In that case, who shot the footage that's already available? Maybe Paper Street and Struckmann are just trying to pull some Blair Witch trickery here.
Regardless, Shelby Oaks is expected to begin filming in Stuckmann's home state of Ohio later this year. AMP International is handling the worldwide sales.
Koontz and Stuckmann are producing Shelby Oaks with Cameron Burns and Ashleigh Snead. Sean E. DeMott and Paul Holbrook serve as executive producers.
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