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.

Deep Blue Sea 2: Deeper, Bluer, Hungrier

Among fish, sharks are considered comparatively intelligent and sociable. However, bull sharks are such mean killing machines,even a touchy-feely shark conservationist like Misty Calhoun won’t go near them. So why would pharma billionaire Carl Durant make them his smart drug guinea pigs, like Bradley Cooper in Limitless? Maybe it has something to do with his reckless megalomania. Regardless, people are about to become fish food in Darin Scott’s direct-to-DVD sequel, Deep Blue Sea 2 (trailer here), which releases today.

It has been a while since the original Deep Blue Sea released in 1999, so you may have either forgotten it, or been faithfully pining for a sequel. In either case, you can feel free to dive into DBS2, because there are no returning characters. We just get another batch of smart sharks. As we know, sharks are Calhoun’s specialty. That is why Durant wants to recruit her for the project, even though her value-added seems minimal. At least she can tell just by looking Bella, the queen bee bull shark is mega-pregnant.

Of course, Calhoun is appalled by Durant’s scheme, as any rational person would be. Even his shark herder (or whatever) Trent Slater is pretty disgusted with his boss. Frankly, Durant was always arrogant, but he has become alarmingly erratic since he started dosing himself with the experimental cocktail. However, things really get ugly when the facility starts to flood—and Bella gives birth to a gaggle of piranha-like babies.

So yeah, killer sharks. Its definitely meathead stuff, but the execution is more competent than we would expect. Michael Beach is flamboyantly nutty as Durant and his motivating fear of an artificial intelligence-induced singularity is an interesting touch. Danielle Savre also makes Calhoun a pleasingly forceful protag. However, the rest of the ensemble bring little energy to their stock characters. Frankly, many of them look like they are just waiting around to get eaten.

Hopefully, The Meg will be better than this. However, as direct-to-DVD sequels go, this is much more watchable than most, but whether it is worth the nineteen-year wait is a question only you can answer for yourself. Probably decent hangover viewing material, Deep Blue Sea 2 releases today on DVD, exactly where it belongs.