The St. Francisville Experiment is not very good. Like, at all. I wanted to be really, really hard on it for being such a startlingly poor ghost-hunting movie, but then at the very end of the credits I noticed the date it was made. 1999 - released in 2000. So when I realized it was in all likelihood made as a knee-jerk reaction to The Blair Witch Project, I had to cut it a little slack. I mean, it still sucks, but at that point people hadn't really figured out just what exactly it was that made the whole found footage genre work. If The St. Francisville Experiment was released now, it would be inexcusable. But as it is, it's just a really bad, old Blair Witch knock off.
I mean, maybe my expectations were just too high. I mean, who could blame me for getting excited, after seeing this fine promotional art courtesy of Amazon Prime:
The pitch was probably Blair Witch, but in a haunted house. It is a little interesting that this was released well before the current ghost hunting craze (Ghost Adventures Crew, for life!) - so it's quite a bit different than what you expect when you hear "ghost hunting horror film." Instead of sending in a bunch of "professionals," here they send in four amateurs - Madison (a "sensitive"/psychic type), Tim (the film student camera man - although they all have cameras, so...), Paul (the leader of the group), and Ryan (a history student - she's the one that's always scared). Also, the lights in the house mostly work, and there isn't any of the night vision camera stuff that seems to be the norm nowadays.
Anyways, we get the story of St. Francisville through some really crappy interviews. They tell the (apparently true) story of Delphine LaLaurie, an early 19th century Louisiana socialite who tortured and murdered her slaves. It's a disgusting story (as is her wikipedia page)... but it would at least make for a good haunted place for our folks to investigate, right? Nope! They are going to investigate somewhere where LaLaurie *might* have escaped to after she evaded the law. Kind of a weak premise, if you ask me. Plus, the interviews are just comically bad. One local historian is telling the story of the house and talks about a ghost who yells in French, saying "who else could it be, but possibly Madame LaLaurie?" (this is how you know it was unscripted. I don't think the "who else/possibly" thing is something that someone could write down. That sort of thing just happens.) And the guy describing the ghost hunting equipment is terrible too. Check out how he describes one piece of equipment:
"This is probably the simplest meter to use. It's a digital meter. All you have to do is turn it on. You get a read out on it so that it tells you exactly what you're looking for."
So yeah, he doesn't describe what it does, what it measures, or even how you use it. He talks a lot but says nothing. Which is really a pretty accurate assessment for the entire film, actually.
But anyways, our four kids make it into the house, and not an awful lot happens. There are maybe two scares until the very end, maybe three if you count the cockroach that they find. (The roach eventually ends up in Ryan's sandwich - when a bug on food is the creepiest part of your horror film, you have a problem.) And yes, there is the requisite shot of a person getting dragged away from the camera - although it's so slow it's pretty laughable compared to what you see today.
The funny thing is, the kids here are actually kind of likable - usually in these sorts of things there is at least one (but usually more) grating, obnoxious character. But here, they all seem pretty reasonable. They just don't really do anything. They joke around a bit, and argue to pad out the film, but when you get bored with/mad at the film you know it's not really their fault. And a lot of the scares actually take place off camera. Madison explains that the spirits don't like the camera, so will only do things when they're not filming. That's all well and good, but probably not a quality you want in a ghost movie.
And The St. Francisville Experiment falters as a found footage movie too. There are way too many conveniently placed camera shots - the afore-mentioned bug/sandwich bit is a particularly big offender. And there are times where a fifth (invisible) person must be wandering around with a camera, because there is no way that some of the footage could have come from the our four investigators.
So yeah - it's not a good movie. Part of me wants to cut them some slack for being so early on in the first-wave of found footage films. But even with that slack... The St. Francisville Experiment is still really bad.
I would not, at all, recommend this film.
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