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Customer Reviews of The St. Francisville Experiment

I think what made the movie particularly funny was the fact that it tried to pass the events off as real, even though it was obviously set up. Well, first of all, the characters, four twenty-somethings, were overly annoying. You have your typical blonde "Britney Spears"-type girl who screams and cries unnecessarily at everything, and the so-called "psychic" girl who wants to surround everything in a Bright White Light. Really, she reminded me of Molly Shannon's character on "Saturday Night Live"'s Goth Talk, which made it all the more hilarious.

And the two guys were typical you-have-an-opinion-you-must-be-on-your-period jerks. I was almost rooting for the ghosts to put this foursome out of their misery.

The other thing that made this film unbelieveable was the fact that they sent four idiots to do a serious investigation. Every time a simple draft or noise occurred, they jumped at shadows. Seriously--you feed a group of young, idiotic people with ghost stories and put them in a supposedly haunted house all night to look for ghosts, and they're going to see something. It's called group hysteria, which is a real thing.

Maybe if they hadn't tried to pass off the film as real it might have worked better for me. As I said before, it was obviously set up. I mean, first of all, that chandelier falls the first time they turn on a light switch--and half the time, they walk around the rooms with flashlights, mysteriously forgetting about a little thing called electricity.

I mean, the whole movie is just so cheesey that it's ridiculous. The ending is particularly hokey, but I'm not going to give it away in case you decide to watch it.

I think the only real interesting part is the story about that society matron in New Orleans, and about what she did to her servants. That was a genuinely creepy story.

The rest of the movie, however, is pretty much a joke. Cheap laughs at best.

What Blair Witch should have been.
The comparisons between this film and BW are inevitible; they go with the same general idea of a small band of young people exploring a paranormal experience. What made this movie much better for me than Blair Witch was believeability. Whereas the plot, acting, and interactions in BW were all very bad in my opinion, this movie scared the bejesus out of me. A sign of a good scary movie is that it will affect you after you finish watching it, looking over your shoulder. I laughed through most of BW and that was seeing it in a theater. TSFP on the other hand, I watched at home by myself, and I had to have a light on. I do not scare very easily, and the only thing that does make me go into the whole "fight or flight" adrenaline-pumping frightened mode is real stories and videos of ghosts. While a few of the events and the too perfect selection of people tips you off that this really is just a movie, the actors and interactions are just real enough to leave you questioning whether or not it could possibly be real. Also I'd like to say I thought the actors did a wonderful job portraying who they did, and I believed them through the movie. Whereas I laughed when the girl was talking into the camera in BW, I felt really frightened and sympathetic for the "psychic" in the one "mirror" scene (If you watch it, you'll know which one I mean.). Probably what also helped this was I didn't know whether it was real or not at the beginning. That's the one edge BW should have had, but never did because of the media hype that surrounded it. Even with that, I felt TSFP was far superior in many ways and on what had to be an even smaller budget. In fact the only thing that keeps it from 5 stars is mearly the first thing that happens and the ending, otherwise a great scary movie, perfect for scaring yourself senseless on Holloween if you can't find a haunted house of your own to visit.

Not great, but not terrible
Well, I'm not sure this movie deserves to be lampooned. It certainly isn't terrible. The background and intro to the house is pretty shallow. In fact, the initial time spent inside the house seems almost casual and silly at times.

Things finally start to get rolling after the group visits the attic. When the group splits up, the movie is at its best; just being creepy enough to stay within the "this isn't a movie but real" mold.

There are the usual cliches and the acting can be described as amateurish, but at least it fits in with the premise that these are supposed to be normal people. I honestly felt like this movie tried, it's a far better attempt at a film than the cookie cutter action flicks or romantic comedies that Hollywood seems to think we never get enough of.