A prominent YouTube critic has parlayed his online celebrity into crowd-funding a horror film that he directed and wrote, which received a prestigious fest play. Then, it was acquired by hot indie distribution Neon.
Chris Stuckman, who amassed a staggering 2 million YouTube followers over 13 years for his film reviews/commentaries, is the director of supernatural drama “Shelby Oaks.” The movie premiered July 20 at the 28th Fantasia International Film Festival (in Montreal), after which U.S. indie distributor Neon acquired worldwide distribution rights.
“Shelby Oaks” is a supernatural yarn built around found-footage involving a paranormal investigator missing for 12 years. It was financed by a March 2022 campaign on Kickstarter, the crowd funding website, which raised $1.4 million from 14,720 small investors. The original goal was just $250,000.
“‘Shelby Oaks’ has picked up two massive seals of approval in the horror community in the last few weeks,” says a Variety story earlier this month by William Earl. “The announcement that ‘Haunting of Hill House’ creator Mike Flanagan signed on as an executive producer, and that red-hot distributor Neon acquired the film — coming days after the successful opening of Oz Perkins’ ‘Longlegs.’”
Neon is a Los Angeles-based movie company with sparkle in the independent world distributing South Korean quirky drama “Parasite” (which won the Oscar for Best Picture!), ice-skating queen drama “I, Tonya” and acclaimed moon-walk documentary “Apollo 11.”
There are some knocks as well. Early reviews from the fest screening are mixed. Also, some sniping emerged online that Stuckman loses impartiality by becoming a filmmaker himself, though cinema has some famous examples. French New Wave auteur Jean Luc Goddard and Peter Bogdanovich are some are examples of celebrated filmmakers who started as critics. Stuckman said a few months ago he’s dialing back critiquing other movies because of his turn to filmmaker.
Stuckman film reviews and commentaries aim to be accessible to mainstream audiences, and thus not high-brow, and thus are in the mold of the legendary duo Siskel and Ebert. Stuckman leans to the optimistic side, which separates him from other YouTubers seeking attention by being outrageous.
He grew up on Ohio where he gravitated to his career from a love of movies, and has a degree in film studies from the University of Akron.
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