Wow, I can’t believe it’s day 8 already…

Tried out another Found Footage movie tonight. This one is actually pre-Paranormal Activity, following more in the footsteps of Blair Witch. Meets Ghost Hunters. And, um, it’s interesting?

Check out that DVD art.

The St. Francisville Experiment – USA, 2000. Dir. Ted Nicolaou. Starring Madison Charap, Ryan Larson, P.J. Palmer, Tim Baldini.

I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure how this movie got on my list. I think I added it because it’s about a haunted Louisiana plantation and I’m a little obsessed with those. I guess that’s how it happened. Has anyone seen this? Or even heard of it? I don’t remember ever hearing of it before I was looking for movies to watch this month. But I don’t know.

We’re back in the Found Footage world with this one and like Paranormal Activity, the found footage thing really doesn’t bother me here. I don’t know why I’m generally so anti-found footage. I’m pretty sure I’ve liked a fair number of the ones I’ve seen. I don’t know.

Anyway, like I said it’s more Blair Witch Project meets Ghost Hunters than Paranormal Activity or V/H/S. It’s still trying to insist that it’s a “true story” and all that. I mean, I guess Paranormal Activity kind of does that but no one really takes it seriously. St. Francisville Experiment wants the audience to believe that it could really be an episode of Ghost Hunters.

And surprisingly that kind of works? Really up until the very end most everything that happens in the movie could be something you’d see on one of these ghost hunting shows. And yet the movie still manages to build a fair bit of tension and be decently creepy at times.

UNFORTUNATELY.

It’s once again filled with really annoying characters. Nothing as bad as our friend Micah but still, annoying. There’s a lot of very shrill yelling and talking and whining. It was kind of hurting my ears by the end of it. I’m really glad this one was also pretty short, I don’t think I could have taken much more of it. I was pretty over it by the end as it was.

What is with these movies building a decent premise, having great ghostly moments, and ruining everything with obnoxious characters? I’m sorry but I don’t care how good everything else is, if I don’t like the people I’m watching my brain is checked out. You’re asking me to give you an hour, two hours of my time to you. Don’t waste it or force me to spend time with people who are so unlikeable.

Madison was about this worst of this bunch but they all had their terrible moments. I think the thing that surprised me most was that the character I ended up hating the least was the film student kid. Man, I knew so many film student kids just like him. He kind of made me laugh.

So this one wasn’t great. It’s a neat house, I do love the plantations, and some spooky stuff happens but overall I was ready for it to end. The end is also a little horror movie light. Very PG.

But it did do pretty well on the drinking game scale! We had:

A FALLING Chandelier (3 drinks for the crashing!)
A seance (1 drink) and a Ouija board (1 drink)
Doors opening and/or closing on their own (1 drink each)
Everyone splits up (4 drinks – one for each person)
A terrifying attic (1 drink)
and a basement of evil (1 drink)
Also bonus drink for the chains randomly falling out of the chimney and the cockroach in the sandwich. Ew.

I need to actually write up this drinking game. And play it. I might enjoy some of these movies more!

I don’t think I hated this movie but ultimately it’s pretty forgettable and I can’t imagine I’d watch it again anytime soon. I mean, unless you wanted to play the drinking game. Bring over the beer and I could be convinced to give it another go.

Oh but hey, if you’re looking for some real disturbing stories of Louisiana hauntings, the actual history of Delphine LaLaurie is genuinely awful. Fun fact of the day! The LaLaurie House was one of the one Nicolas Cage owned for a while in New Orleans. Now if that’s not a scary story, I don’t know what is.