Neon horror flick Shelby Oaks gets reshoots, new October release date

Whenever a movie goes back into production for reshoots, there’s usually immediate skepticism, especially when we get to see the price tag. While we don’t know the exact amount behind the reshoots of Shelby Oaks – the debut from web critic-turned-filmmaker Chris Stuckmann – Neon wrote a check that allowed for more “gore and violence.”

Shelby Oaks was actually a crowd-funded endeavor, with one of the leading figures in horror, Mike Flanagan, offering extra support. Backed by a budget that initially came to $1.4 million, the film is now looking to improve on the reviews that came out of Fantasia Fest last summer. (While reviews were strong overall, our own editor-in-chief Chris Bumbray gave it a 5/10, concluding, “…it’s far from the brilliant debut one might expect, given that Neon is giving it a major release it doesn’t really deserve…” Now will that change with the new additions?)

Stuckmann himself was excited over the fact that Neon would show so much confidence in Shelby Oaks, saying, “We were able to go back into the movie at a couple key points and really punch up some particularly bloody elements. I can’t even express how unprecedented that is for an independent filmmaker.”

It looks like much of the faith that Neon had came from comparing the screenplay to the “finished” Shelby Oaks, as producer Aaron Koontz noted that the studio came back to the filmmakers and asked if they would have included any scrapped scenes had they had the proper budget. Hence, reshoots took place earlier this year, giving Stuckmann and company more opportunities than they ever imagined. One of the more compelling points from the reshoots is that Derek Mears – who played Jason Voorhees in the 2009 version of Friday the 13th – joined the cast, no doubt adding some heft to the movie.

On the new edit of Shelby Oaks, Stuckmann stated, “It’s a dark film, so we’re leaning into that, and Neon gave us the freedom and the additional funds to do it right. We were able to ratchet things up in a pretty gnarly way, and we just can’t wait to show it to people.”

While the plan was for Shelby Oaks to come out last year, the new release has been set for October 3rd, making it one of nearly a dozen movies out from Neon this year.

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