Shelby Oaks, on DVD

This ghost town had two major employers, the amusement park and the prison, both of which closed due to tragic irregularities. Darke County’s economy crashed, due to insufficient diversification, but the abandoned ruins of both predictably became a magnet for online ghost hunters like Mia Brennan-Walker’s little sister Riley. Naturally, Shelby Oaks Prison is a spooky place, because scenes there were filmed at the Ohio State Reformatory, a real-life place considered one of the most haunted prisons in America. Ominously, Brennan and her fellow “Paranormal Paranoids” disappeared shortly after their Shelby Oaks episodes. Despite the passage of years, Brennan heads back out into Darke County looking for Riley, after some admittedly strong prompting in Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks, which releases tomorrow on DVD.

Shelby Oaks is not found footage, but most of the first act plays out that way, as news reports and the Paranormal Paranoids’ archival footage provide most of the exposition. Brennan and her three friends started posting spooky footage back when it was a relatively new phenomenon, so they quickly built a following. Initially, their disappearance was dismissed a publicity stunt, but as the mystery persisted, they became online causes célèbres.

Indeed, yet another film crew happens to be interviewing Brennan-Walker when Wilson Miles rings her doorbell—just so he can commit suicide in front of her. At this point, the film drops the found footage perspective, so we can see Brennan-Walker secretly pocket the mini-video tape he drops. Following Miles’ trail leads her back to Shelby Oaks Prison. Along the way, she detects signs of some serious demonic iconography.

To a large extent, the first hour of Shelby Oaks plays out like a fusion of Blair Witch Project and one of the better online/reality TV ghost hunting crews meeting their match, as maybe best exemplified by Grave Encounters. However, Stuckmann marshals and recombines those elements with remarkable dexterity. It might be familiar, but it works really well.

Stuckmann had the advantage of a colorful and highly credible supporting cast, including Michael Beach (The Rookie) and Keith David (John Carpenter’s The Thing) as Det. Allen Burke and former Shelby Oaks Warden Morton Jacobson, respectively. They don’t just help set the scene. They elevate the picture.

While the last twenty minutes veer off the tracks, Stuckmann and company (including Mike Flanagan, offering advice as an engaged executive producer) serve up a lot of creepy atmosphere and memorable lore. There is a lot here that regular genre consumers will really enjoy, even though it doesn’t exactly nail the landing. Recommended for horror fans, Shelby Oaks releases tomorrow (1/6) on DVD/BluRay.