Movie: The St. Francisville Experiment (2000)

 

Okay. You know how I wrote about The Blair Witch Project (1999) being an "early bringer" of the Found Footage genre? Well, so is The St. Francisville Experiment. It was released a year later, but not to theatres and hype and a scintillating website like Blair Witch. It went straight to VHS/DVD, which explains its relative obscurity.

The St. Francisville Experiment opens with a producer outlining the experiment: four non-professionals are going to spend 24 hours in a haunted house, exploring it top-to-bottom and filming the entire time. But it's not just any haunted house. It's none other than the New Orleans plantation home of Delphine LaLaurie. LaLaurie was a socialite in the 1800s who was discovered to be a brutal, sadistic serial killer. She practiced her bloody dark arts on her unfortunate slaves. One of the enslaved women, who was chained to the stove, started a fire, which led to the staggering discovery. Living and dead bodies, including children, were found in the attic. LaLaurie and her family fled in the night. It's said that she later died in Paris.

I really wanted The St. Francisville Experiment to work. I was rooting for it the whole time. The house was sufficiently creepy. The camerawork was good--remember, the movie-making landscape did not have precedent for found footage in the year 2000, and in my opinion the camerawork here is far superior to Blair Witch. So too are the characters superior. Not that we have to compare The St. Francisville Experiment to The Blair Witch Project, it's just the fact of their close proximity in release date, plus the found footage thing. In The St. Francisville Experiment, the purpose of the experiment is noble--you get the sense that four participants really want to help these trapped earthbound spirits to move on. All four are natural and credible, most of all likeable. I especially appreciate The Psychic, portrayed by Madison Charap.

Madison Charap

She hasn't acted in much in the last 25 years, which is too bad, because she is so compelling. Madison's participation in the foursome is to perform blessings (lots of "bathing in white light" talk), lead a seance using a Ouija board, keep everyone else calm, and to sense and communicate with spirits in the house. When I looked Madison up (because of course I did) I found that she really is a psychic (because of course she is). Outstanding. 

Spoilers ahead!

So what didn't work? Well that's just it--it mostly did, right up until the end. It ended with Madison screaming, a blurry camera shot, one of the guys in the doorway looking at something scary, which we can't see, and then the closing shot is a short blurb (text) telling us the fate of the four ghost hunters. And they're fine. 

What? That's it?

As far as found footage goes, I'd have to call The St. Francisville Experiment a success, for all the reasons I mentioned before--creepy house, good camera work, good characters and acting. But as for story, this one had so much promise! And so much set-up! Only to end too soon! It feels like they just kind of ran out of...time? Budget? Or they just didn't quite know how to end things. There's a long scene in which Paul is about to go into the attic for a second time but he's too scared to open the door and enter. He feels cold. The others are encouraging him, especially Madison. I mean it's a really long scene, but it works to build suspense. The problem is it just doesn't deliver. I guess he enters the attic? It's not clear. Honestly that final text screen feels like a cop-out, and an insult to the viewers. All four ghost hunters are fine? What about Paul and the haunted attic? What about the ghost(s)? Did Madison's blessings help them move on? Why was Madison screaming at the end, when she seemed so in control the whole time? What or whom did she see? 

The St. Francisville Experiment is almost a really good found footage movie. In my opinion, it's ruined by all these unanswered questions and a cop-out of an ending. Even so, I'd recommend it, if only just for the magic that is Madison Charap.👻

 

 

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Oh no, not again: DHL sucks balls

Oh Lord. I ordered something. On September 6th. A long fleece robe from Catherine's. It shipped using DHL. (Insert blood-curdling scream here.)

Here's the thing. DHL is pathetic. I had a long career in Logistics before my brain broke, and therefore I can state with certain authority: never ship with DHL. 

 

How did they even do that, I thought DHL finally stopped trying to do domestic shipments? What the heck, they're back?

 

Over the years, at work I mean, I have lost so many hours on the phone with DHL trying to get packages un-stuck from processing centers, you don't even want to know. I had to tell one of our locations to stop using them, it was just ridiculous. One time, an important shipment was stuck for like a week, and the guy at DHL told me, in all seriousness, that they can't do anything about it because the driver's wife just had a baby. Excuse me? You just have...the one driver? So you're just...not doing the shipments anymore? Have you considered the implications of that? 

 

I could never imagine such a thing with Fed Ex or UPS. Even the US post office is faster and more reliable.

 

My delivery isn't urgent or anything, so I'll just wait. They can take their stupid sweet time. I just thought I was forever done with freakin' DHL Oh no, not again.

 

I placed the order on September 6th, coming from Indianapolis. It was expected to arrive last Thursday September 18th. As of the 17th, it was in Kentucky. 

 

It's the 24th. It's still in Kentucky. I'll just be here waiting for DHL.

 

I'm going to die and go to hell and it'll just be me on hold with DHL for eternity trying to get a package un-stuck.

 

UPDATE Sept 30: I finally sent a note to DHL asking if there is any possibility of getting this shipment out of Kentucky at any point, since it hasn't moved in more than a week. There was movement on it the next day. It's unstuck, finally. Hurray.

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Dear Former Bloggers: Why Did You Stop?

Dear Former Bloggers,

Why did you stop?

 

I myself had some major mental health challenges, a lot of which I blogged about, but there came a time when the effort was just too much. I stopped in November 2020. Five years ago. I started back up again last week. 

 

Diary of a Low Budget Superhero was launched in 1999. It had a different name then: Jungle Sweet Jungle. I named it that as a reference to the book Welcome to the Jungle: The Why Behind "Generation X" by Geoffrey T Holtz. You see, it was to be a GEN X blog. Of course, this was before they were called blogs. It was just an online diary. I thought I'd write about my life, for 20 years, and at the end of 20 years, I'd see how an ordinary, un-spectacular Gen X'er had it all turn out.

 

I started on Diaryland.com, went briefly to Livejournal, I feel like I wrote a few entries on Tumbler, and ultimately landed at Blogger. I've been happiest at Blogger. So here I still am.

 

All entries are available. All the way back to 1999.

 

It's been interesting to see which entries have risen to most-read in my absence. Because I created a List showing Most Popular Posts that's been aggregating the whole five years. I see The Star Wars Holiday Special is still making a decent showing. Heh. That was a fun one.

 

Well, the reason I ask why you stopped blogging is this: I spent some time on Diary of a Low Budget Superhero over the last week. One of the things I want to add to my Layout, that I used to have on here, is what we used to call a blogroll. A list of other blogs we like to read. So I checked it out, looking for all my friends' blogs. And they're all abandoned, having old entries but nothing recent.

 

So...how come?

____________________

UPDATE! Sept 27th

 

YOU GUYS. Guess what? I spent some time yesterday continuing what I'd been trying to do: link some cool blogs in Diary of a Low Budget Superhero. I found a ton of them! In Blogger, a few Wordpress, even some Substack. (I learned that LiveJournal has been sold to Russia, whaaaaat? No thank you.) This is so heartening! People were saying (I asked on Facebook) that the blog is a thing of the past. Old school. Done away with in favor of social media. NOPE. So I linked to some I would love to read daily, under "Other Cool Blogs." Check 'em out!

#thebloglives #longlivetheblog

 

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If You Had This Haircut...

 

Michael, Lou, and me...with that haircut.

 

 

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Movie: The Psychic (1977)

Joe and I watched The Psychic last night. It's a Fulci, so we thought we knew what to expect. But we were pleasantly surprised! We were glad to get into it. 

Lead actress Jennifer O'neill is stunning, haunted and fraught. Her psychic visions are tantalizing, letting us in on her mounting horror and providing glimpses of the approaching danger. It builds tension, it teases suspense. 

And by the way, I found myself exclaiming "Want!" at every single outfit O'neill wore, including the fedoras and jewels. When the movie finally revealed it's surprising ending (well, I distrusted that character the whole time if I'm honest) we immediately went back to the beginning to see who the costume designer was--it's a dude named Massimo Lentini. According to IMDb he worked a lot, on other Fulci movies and more, as both costume designer and production designer. Well, I'm a fan. Those costumes were gorgeous, evoking a slick, stylish 1920s vibe, even though the action takes place in the 1970s. 

Two things of note just so you're aware--the actors speak English rather than Italian. That's unusual for Fulci. And even more unusual is the mild gore--this is a director who is known for filming long, drawn out and close up kills, and a high body count. Not this time! It's way toned down. All told, The Psychic is a thoroughly enjoyable, beautiful to look at thriller. Highly Recommended.

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Movie: Found Footage 3D (2016)

I never hear about this one. Found Footage 3D, it's on Shudder. The premise will resonate with some of you! A group of filmmakers want to go to a remote house in the woods to make a found footage movie, but they don't want it to be same-old same-old. So one of them gets the idea to shoot it on 3D cameras, and procures a few. On Shudder it's not 3D, but I understand from a friend of mine you can get it in 3D. 3D aside, it's a pretty good movie! There are decent jump scares, an original story, and a great ending. I recommend it!

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