The St. Francisville Experiment Movie Review

Trailer here.

The St. Francisville Experiment is a 2000 found footage horror movie directed by Ted Nicolaou and starring nobody you would know.

A producer called Paul(Paul Salamoff) is making a documentary with a group of paranormal investigators. Their documentary is set in a place called St. Francisville. It is supposed to be haunted. The participants are Tim, Madison, Ryan  and Troy. Troy is supposedly an expert on ghosts. A woman called Sarah is coming along too. She says that she is psychic. They talk about a woman called Madam LaLaurie who was evil and tortured people in her house. They think that she might have stayed at St. Francisville.  Paul talks to some of the locals about the house. A psychic is going to go into the house too. They all arrive at the house. Paul locks them inside for the night. The lights don't work. Madison feels uneasy. They set up their equipment.

Madison hears someone whisper her name. A door opens on its own. Let me tell you, I would be getting the key and running the hell out of there at this point! They wander around and go down to the old creepy basement. There is an old doctors bag with knives inside. Music starts to play(get out of there!!!!). They discover a music box. A doll makes an appearance. Every horror movie cliché seems to be in this film. A chair moves by itself. The group goes up to the attic and there is a dead bird up there.  The lights go out and they go back downstairs. A séance is the next thing to happen. These people just want something bad to happen to them, it seems. 

They have a Ouija board and of course they make contact. The spirit is called Charles. Chains appear from the chimney. They decide to cleanse the house. I would think that it is a bit late for that now. Paul goes into the attic to cleanse it. He gets stuck up there. Tim hears noises and he gets dragged away by something. Madison is attacked, but Paul saves her. They go and look for the others and they find them tied up. What is going on in the creepy house? Could it be some ghosts maybe? The group escape and the film draws to a close.

The first thing to say about this film is that it is certainly cashing in on the Blair Witch Project success. That is obvious. This film is not as good as Blair Witch. It can stand on its own two feet, though. It is a haunted house film and there are some decent scares in it. The acting is ropey, to be sure, but still, I did enjoy this. There is a lot of hate for it because people compare it to the better film, but just enjoy it for what it is- a low budget haunted house movie with some scares. Don't expect too much and you will enjoy it. It isn't great, but it isn't as bad as people say either. Make up your own mind. I found it hard to rate this. It is somewhere between a four and a five.