‘Parasite’ distributor snags rights for YouTube critic Chris Stuckmann’s horror film

A beloved YouTube film critic has teamed up with one of the buzziest distributors in the film industry. Neon, which has brought arthouse favorites like Parasite, Anatomy of a Fall, and Triangle of Sadness to theatergoers in the United States, has acquired the rights to Chris Stuckmann‘s horror film Shelby Oaks.

According to Variety, Neon will give Shelby Oaks a theatrical run in the U.S. and will handle its international sales. The film offers a new twist in the found footage genre. It depicts the search for a woman who went missing after producing an investigative series called ‘Paranormal Paranoids’.

Stuckmann celebrated the distribution deal on YouTube, where his film reviews reach more than two million subscribers. “It’s hard to communicate just how monumental this is for an independent film,” Stuckmann said. “It’s a very strange time for filmmakers trying to break into the industry.”

For Shelby Oaks, the journey to the big screen has been three years in the making. In 2021, Paper Street Pictures

tapped Stuckmann to write and direct a horror film. Financing came from a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, which brought in more than $650,000 to support Stuckmann’s vision. Earlier this year, Shelby Oaks got another boost when it added horror master Mike Flanagan to its production team.

The YouTuber-to-director pipeline is having a bit of a moment right now, with creators like Wesley Wang and RackaRacka snagging deals with film industry bigwigs. A24, one of Neon’s chief rivals in the world of distribution, has recently upped its investment in social media talent. With Shelby Oaks, Neon is following suit.

Stuckmann has conducted interviews with some of those creator-directors as they have moved from YouTube to Hollywood. I doubt the long-serving critic plans to review his own movie once Shelby Oaks comes out, but we can expect other YouTube reviewers to help viewers make sense of Stuckmann’s directorial debut.