I know a lot of people seem to have a passionate hatred for this film. After all, it was made to cash in on the success of The Blair Witch Project. But to be fair, the film industry does this all the time, taking a popular film and its ideas & themes, then running them completely into the ground.
But who really cares about that crap, as long as the film is good. I do not claim to possess an intricate knowledge of filmmaking; I simply like what I like and don't care if other people laugh at me and think I'm stupid for enjoying what they consider bad cinema.
When I first watched The St. Francisville Experiment in college with a couple of my friends, I was totally drawn into the film. For the hour+ that it was on I was completely engrossed in the goings on of the four characters as they try to determine whether or not the house is haunted. Granted, the acting certainly wasn't Oscar-caliber, but the cast was believable enough to keep my attention for the duration of the film. They exuded enough of a naive charm that I found them likeable and wanted them to come out of the house unscathed.
Perhaps most important of all involving a haunted house film was that I found the film scary. It's been quite a while since I've felt fear from watching a film, having my skin break out in goosebumps. And this movie did it for me, and I can't thank them enough.
Ripoff or not, I like this film! It has believable characters, a cool back story based on true events, eerie atmosphere, and an overall feeling of doom and horror. I like this film even more than The Blair Witch Project (which is itself somewhat of a ripoff of Cannibal Holocaust), and I am not ashamed to say that.
