The Plot
After an unrelated prologue set in 1997 featuring another doomed teen about to lose her soul on her 18th birthday, we jump to Molly Hartley (Haley Bennett), a 17-year-old who recently moved to a new town to start her life over after being stabbed by her now-institutionalized mother (Marin Hinkle), who was supposedly trying to "save" her.
Molly's father (Jake Weber) has enrolled her in the exclusive Huntington Academy, where she's immediately targeted by resident dreamboat Joseph (Chace Crawford) for smoochin' and by resident mean girl Suzie (AnnaLynn McCord) for hazin'. Despite her mopey, boo-hoo-my-mother-stabbed-me demeanor, though, Molly makes quick friends in bible-thumping Alexis (Shanna Collins) and semi-burnout Leah (Shannon Marie Woodward).
Shunning the former in favor of the latter, Molly begins to feel that her life might be making a turn for the better, but then she starts to hear voices and see shrouded visions of dark figures. More than once, she ends up with a bloody nose and a fainting spell, and people start to wonder what's up with the new girl.
What's up, it turns out, is that Molly's parents sold her soul at birth in order to ensure that she'd survive the difficult delivery. At the stroke of midnight on her 18th birthday, Molly's soul becomes the property of the man downstairs. While Molly's mother truly believes that Satan's emissary was the real deal, her dad has always thought that they were dealing with a loony and figured that Molly's survival was just a coincidence. His bad.
The End Product
PG-13 horror movies don't have to be bad, but The Haunting of Molly Hartley embodies the worst fears that horror fans have about these films -- namely, that they're toothless shells that remove any of the edge that defines horror movies. Molly Hartley feels like a made-for-TV movie not only because of its sterile, nearly bloodless content, but also due to its mediocre production value and -- judging from the casting of stars from both 90210 and Gossip Girl -- its desperate, CW-styled desire for hipness.
I don't know why this movie ever made it to the big screen. The script is bland and unoriginal, both on a horror and a teen drama level, and the attempt at a "twist" ending is unshocking and contrived. There's never an explanation as to what exactly serving Satan entails, so there's little emotional involvement in Molly's plight. Maybe all she has to do is file paperwork or answer phones.
Anyone expecting to see some sort of ghostly "haunting" will surely be disappointed by the misnomer of a title. It should be called Molly Hartley Hears Things, Like People Whispering and Musical Cues That Imply That Something Scary Is About to Happen, But It Never Does. The direction from Mickey Liddell -- not surprisingly, a veteran producer for the WB (now CW) network -- is as dull and uninspired as the script, evoking no fear and only the occasional jump through cheap "boo" scares.
Molly Hartley tries to split the difference between horror movie and teen angst movie and misses the target on both counts, delivering an unconvincing final product that feels like it's more about marketing than about entertainment or innovation.
The Skinny
- Acting: C+ (Bennett gives it a good shot as Molly, but Crawford is stiff.)
- Direction: D+ (Has the flair of a Ford commercial.)
- Script: D (Flat and predictable with ridiculous coincidences.)
- Gore/Effects: D+ (Goes out of its way to avoid gore, and the few digital effects look cheap.)
- Overall: D+ (A mediocre ABC Family movie of the week.)
The Haunting of Molly Hartley is directed by Mickey Liddell and is rated PG-13 for strong thematic material, violence and terror, brief strong language and some teen drinking. Release date: October 31, 2008.
