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Review: The St. Francisville Experiment If you are of the generation that simply adores the fictional reality shows that are 'all the rage' these days, you will not be disappointed.  However - if you're looking for a good ghost story with believable characters and a cathartic ending, you're bound to be disappointed. Background When this reviewer first heard about the experiment in December of 2000, there was a suppressed air of excitement about the whole thing.  However, the first disappointment registered when those faithfully following the project were informed that it would be released directly to video.  Hmm. History of the Experiment Most of you will be familiar with the historical background of the movie, but for those who aren't; here is a brief synopsis.  Madame Delphine LaLaurie was one of the most celebrated hostesses in New Orleans around the turn of the century.  Unfortunately, Madame had a strange predilection for medical experiments; aided and abetted by her 'physician' husband.  During a Mardi Gras fete, several of Madame's guests noticed that she left the fete quite frequently and, while only gone for a short period of time, would return flushed and overly excited.   Towards the mid-point of the festivities, several guests noted a smell emanating from some point in the house.  It turned out Madame's cook, shackled to a wall in the kitchen by a two-foot chain for the past several years, had taken enough abuse at Madame's hands and deliberately set a fire to call attention to herself.  When dozens of neighbors and firemen came to stop the blaze, they decided to use the excuse of stray embers to do a full search of the house from top to bottom - or should I say bottom to top?  The search yielded very little, other than a few strange _object_s here and there which no one could put a name to, ended when the group of searchers reached the attic. The attic itself took up only a small corner of the extensive floor, but upon trying the door, they were surprised to find it locked - from the inside.  Determined, the searchers broke the door down.  Several of them, not a few moments afterward, wished they hadn't.  What they had associated with the stench of death revealed mutilated bodies of men, women and children.  Some, still alive, were helped.  But most, like the man who had been used for a barbaric sex-change operation, were already deceased. Madame and a manservant had readied her coach in the interior courtyard as soon as the fire had started, knowing 'the game was up.'  Madame, her husband and two grown daughters from a previous marriage ploughed through the angry mob of townsfolk gathering outside the gate - and disappeared. Some people theorize that Madame and her family managed to find refuge in a nearby town, St. Francisville.  Most believe that Madame eventually found her way back to New Orleans under an assumed name and is buried in one of the many 'cities of the dead' there. The St. Francisville Experiment The P_layer_s To save face for the actors who portrayed the characters is this story; I'll restrict myself to their character names. First we have our fearless team leader, Paul.  He touts himself as being qualified to take part in this experiment under the excuse, ...I've had several ghostly encounters of my own...  Unfortunately, Paul has a tendency to fold under pressure and ends up taunting the female characters - most memorably accusing the one female member of being distraught because it's her 'time of the month...' Secondly, our budding film student, Tim.  His qualifications for this little adventure? Well, they're going to need someone who can really get good camera angles to show the spookiness of the place.  Tim's only fault is his sense of humor - which includes jumping out of dark corners and scaring the crap out of our little team. This young man has the best acting in the group, unfortunately. Our third team member is the pre-requisite blonde history student screamer, Ryan.  Yes, fellas, she's female, sports a bare mid-drift and tends to be highly excitable.  Her first screaming bout?  When the downstairs lights won't work fifteen minutes into the movie. And, last but not least - the resident, self-proclaimed psychic Madison.  While hers could have been the most convincing performance of the piece; her sole goal through this whole mess is to scare the rest of the team members with all the bad poetry she can find. The Location A rather large (and currently lived-in) plantation house in the vicinity of St. Francisville.  Please keep in mind, this is not the house Madame was supposed to have escaped to.  It is the manor house on a well-known plantation and was, until ten years ago, owned by a family in the community.  The house was sold and turned into an inn only after the children in the family had grown and left.  At the beginning of the movie, there's an interview with one of the children's friends - who insists there is nothing strange about the house but a few old family stories. The Experiment After a very cursory explanation of the workings of the equipment they will be using, all your typical ghost-hunting-if-you-were-really-rich-and-bored toys.  Then we have the drop-off at the deserted (and supposedly locked down tight) house.  Our team is told that the front door will be locked behind them and none of the windows can be opened.   The initial sweep of the house turns up nothing, other than your required cold spots and strange noises.  However, there is a cute little scene with a cat and a doll that our viewers will find extremely amusing.  Once the initial sweep is completed, our team retires to its safe haven downstairs to have their lunch.  Here is where the tensest scene of the movie begins and ends.  Ryan's camera, sat next to her and in her face on the coffee table, records the opening of a tasty-looking turkey sandwich.  However, perched on the end of the sandwich facing the camera is a rather large cockroach! As the team members talk, we receive periodic shots of the cockroach's progress and Ryan's stop-and-go technique eating.  Finally, there's a final shot of the sandwich -sans cockroach.  Everyone wonders, what happened to the little bugger (pun intended).  Finally, Ryan takes a big mouthful of her sandwich and chews, then stops with a strange look on her face.  You guessed it!  She's eaten the cockroach.  After several hysterical moments, Tim manages to control his laughter and film the 'removal' of the cockroach. From here, the film pretty much goes downhill. After a particularly boring session with a Ouija board, in which I still believe Madison is pushing the planchette, the group decides to do a 'cleansing ritual.'  For this, each team member needs to go into a room of his or her own and mumble a prayer.   In her room, Madison is attacked by a spectral African man, whom we briefly see as a reflection in a mirror; Ryan falls through the floor downstairs in a scene reminiscent of Tom Hanks in The Money Pit; Paul is attacked by unseen forces in the attic and manages to find a skeletal arm in the floorboards; and Tim finds a secret passage between rooms and is last seen being dragged back down the hall by the heels, screaming. Paul rescues the hysterical Madison and together they rescue Ryan and Tim from a makeshift torture chamber, a la Madame.  Madison, snapping out of her apparent catatonia, screams that Madame is coming.  They flee the house. In the end credits, we are told that Madison still bears the physical scars of her attack and the whole team spent most of the night and the next day in the hospital for physical and psychological treatment. Comments While the characters showed the full compliment of static 'necessaries' for a horror movie, I couldn't help but think the overacting and actor choice could have used some better thought.  In my humble opinion, the hysterical blonde female fell apart just a bit too early in the movie; the fearless leader was anything but; the psychic was a little too flaky and the comic turned out to be the one person you hoped would be the 'hero.' The ending, with its strange sightings and earthquake-like shakings of the house, were seriously overdone.  The flash-shots of the torture chamber, with its jars of what looked more like preserved pig's feet and pickled eggs than organs, was laughable.  There was even (and I wish fervently that they'd left this out) a 'going to try to manifest' green cloud in the chamber as the group ran screaming out of the house. How to make this fiasco better?  I do have a few suggestions: 1. Don't let the blonde scream so soon or frequently. 2. Take the Ouija board away from the psychic. 3. Ditch the ending all together and stop at the 'cleansing prayer.'  Don't let the cleansing work exactly, but keep everything at a 'thought-I-saw-something-over-there' level. 4. Please don't tell us in the credits that the spirit the group supposedly raised on the Ouija board called 911 the next morning asking for help. Well, there's my two cents.  Send in your feedback if you've seen this movie, I'd be happy to discuss it with you. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ For more information on the Delphine LaLaurie legend, check out these websites: Haunted New Orleans: http://www.nola.com/lalaurie/ipix/stlou_no1_alley4.html New Orleans French Quarter Guide: http://frenchquarter.neworleans.com/supernatural.html Shadowlands, Famous Hauntings: http://theshadowlands.net/famous/lalaurie.htm ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Respectfully submitted April 26, 2001 Shane