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 Being a hybrid of the (in)famous "Blair Witch Project" and haunted house movies like "The Legend of Hell House", "The St. Francisville Experiment" tries to make a haunted house all the more eerie by showing it in the realistic cinéma vérité style. Theoretically, this concept could bring the haunted house genre to a new level, but unfortunately that will have to happen at another time with another movie. "The St. Francisville Experiment" has too many things working against it. The first quarter will challenge your attention span with its gabbiness, and some trite "boo moments"--such as cats & prankish boys leaping from out of the dark--only make matters worse. Also, things aren't quite as scary if there's an obvious exit. The college students investigating the house really could have left it at any time, even though their assignment calls for them to stay until dawn. One reason why "Blair Witch Project" works is because its characters don't have that easy exit since they end up hopelessly lost in a strange forest. Perhaps worst of all, the ending jumps from the climax directly to a written epilogue, not leaving much of an aftermath. In spite of all its flaws, "The St. Francisville Experiment" does manage to generate some genuine chills, thanks largely to a nifty shot of a rolling chair and some suspenseful moments with the ghosts reacting negatively to a cleansing ritual. The bottom line: As far as horror movies go, "The St. Francisville" ranks about average. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but it has still some redeeming qualities. You could easily find something much worse, like "Savage Vengeance" or "The House That Screamed 2: Hellgate". |
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QUARTER BY QUARTER ANALYSIS OF MOVIE
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OVERALL RATING
** NOTE: The more dots on the domino, the better the movie. If it's a DVD with a rating of 3 dots or less, you might as well consider it to be a Deadly Venereal Disease instead of a Digital Video Disk. ** |
    
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The Worm-Hole Reviews are written by Matt Barnes.