THE ST.FRANCISVILLE EXPERIMENT

Ever since the first press release announcing The St. Francisville Experiment, I've heard the term "Blair Witch rip-off" applied to it. You won't hear me adding to that nonsense -- as it has been noted in hundreds of articles, The Blair Witch Project was far from the first film to use the falsified documentary as a format with which to tell a story. After its success, could anyone expect that it would be the last?

The St. Francisville Experiment is most certainly inspired by Blair Witch, and even adopts its added innovation of having the actors do the filming themselves, using their own names. It uses the format to tell a horror story, and there is even a line of dialogue in the film -- which is thrown in without proper context -- that makes reference to it. But beyond that, this picture has more in common with haunted house movies like The Haunting and Hell House. Reality TV shows like The Real World are another inspiration.

The program is divided into titled sections, initially introduced by producer Paul Samanoff (Dana Scanlan). In "The Participants", we're introduced to the team of four young adults chosen to explore the St. Francisville house (somewhere in the New Orleans area) in an attempt to document supernatural phenomena that has been witnessed there. Tim Thompson (Baldini) is a film student in charge of the digital video cameras with which the four are equipped. He's also there (as are the other three) as a point of identification for a segment of the audience, and to help explain why so many shots are so well composed (it's part of his job). Madison Charap is a psychic. She's also the team's most annoying member during the experiment, piping up with "I feel something here" whenever they enter a room. Ryan Larson is a history student that knows the background of the building and the people that lived there -- though it's not really explained why she had to go along. Paul Cason (Palmer) is an amateur ghost hunter that works with the producer, and becomes the team leader.

The "reality" of the documentary is shattered from the beginning, as the actors are all just a little too slick to be believed. But then, you didn't believe it for a second, did you? That point settled, the "History" section tells us how in 1830s New Orleans, a woman named Delphine LaLaurie was discovered to have committed horrifying medical tortures on her slaves, and subsequently escaped to the St. Francisville plantation, where her sadistic crimes continued.

The "Exploring the House" section begins the actual experiment. The house itself looks real, although obviously dressed and rigged as a location (probably parts of several houses). Nice natural touches help keep the viewer involved, such as many instances where the cast has trouble carrying things while filming, taking bathroom breaks, etc.

St. Francisville follows the haunted house movie blueprint step by step. There are false scares -- including an unpardonable "cat jumping out of a closet" scene -- mixed in with actual ghost activity, so that you're not sure what's coming next. There's a gross out scene where somebody doesn't know what they're really eating. A hand clutches at someone's shoulder. During "The Seance", the team uses a Ouija board to try to contact the spirits. The team splits up for the experiment's climax in "The Cleansing", during which the ghosts get much more aggressive.

All of these spook house tricks have been a part of fright flicks going back to at least Paul Leni's The Cat and the Canary. It's tried and true material, but by dressing it up in a new way, The St. Francisville Experiment makes it work. The handheld camera work and the subtle rhythm of the editing is disorienting, and makes you feel out of control. Even though you know they're actors, the reactions of the cast is believable. Madison's new age nonsense is annoying to her companions as well, but they go along with it up to a point to be polite. The phony backstory is so horrific that it settles into the back of your mind, whether you want it to or not. When Tim keeps repeating "I love all ghosts!", you laugh, but cutting the tension only defines it more clearly. When Paul, who had been the brave leader who needed to explore the attic, is later too terrified to enter, you feel dread because you know you'd be scared in the same situation. The movie overplays its hand a few times, including a silly coda at the end, but that doesn't discount the many scenes that play just right.

If The Blair Witch Project worked, it worked by playing on our fear of the deep woods, reproducing scary campfire stories in a new way. The St. Francisville Experiment uses the same set of tools to play on our fear of old dark houses. Like a carnival spook house, where you know it's corny but can't keep the hairs from standing up on your neck anyway. And a lot of you will come out saying, "Dat wasn't so scary!"

It's the creepiest chiller I've seen since Hideo Nakata's The Ring. Perfect for your next Halloween party.

Trimark's transfer comes straight from a digital source, so the picture looks and sounds just as good as it did in the cameras. The disc also presents a few clips of the cast being interviewed in character, which were supposedly filmed before the experiment, but for some reason look like they were done after. There's also a trailer for the film narrated by Poltergeist's ghosthunter Zelda Rubinstein, as well as one for The Storm of the Century. The best extra on the disc is one that explains "How to Conduct Your Own Experiment". It sounds like you could have a great party by following the instructions -- and maybe sell the resulting footage to Trimark as Experiment 2:Book of Shadows.