The Haunting of Molly Hartley

The Haunting of Molly Hartley...2008...82 minutes...PG-13...starring Haley Bennett, Jake Weber, Chace Crawford and Shanna Collins...written by John Travis and Rebecca Sonnenshine...directed by Mickey Liddell

Molly Hartley has had it rough. She's had to move to a new school and try to start her life over after her mom...well, after her mother tried to stab her with a pair of scissors.  No one would be surprised that Molly's having a little stress in her bid to readjust and move on with her life...especially as her 18th birthday comes up. Yeah, Molly has her share of demons...the question is whether or not they're metaphorical.

 I found this selection to be a bland offering; not particularly good but really not bad in any way as well. In the horror genre, this kind of tastelessness can be the kiss of death. Even bad films can develop a following, especially if they hit that "so bad it's good" point for viewers. But this movie just kind of sits there...no performances stand out for me but none are really terrible or hammy...okay, the school counselor borders on hammy but that's about it. The writing is decent but not exactly scintillating...and the movie looks like what a teen angst horror-ish movie would be expected to be. It's tofu.

That said, there are a couple of things that the movie brings up that I'd like to hit on while we're here. One, religious fervor is one of those things that apparently unnerves people. Maybe this is a movie heritage left to us from "Carrie"...her mother being a sterling portrait of faith gone too far. Maybe it's just a reflection of our society's rational instincts butting heads with the irrationality of faith: where is the line between conviction and craziness? I do find it interesting that in some movies, it's the religious nuts that know what's really going on...which to me only complicates the issue. (Call of Cthulhu roleplayers might be familiar with the idea of the insane insight...seems like what we have going on here.)

Second, I'm not sure if this cinematic selection plays more to the idea that growing up is a loss of innocence or to the parental fear of children becoming the wrong sort of adults when they grow up. Certainly things do not end well for either of Molly's parents in the movie...although honestly, if you make a shaitan's bargain, these sorts of things end up happening. Mostly, I realized that the lack of control a parent must feel when a child does indeed become an adult has to be terrifying, and I expect there's a lot of worry over what sort of person the once-child will become. (Can you tell I am -not- a parent?)

Overall, these are but interesting tangents to a so-so film. I give this one 2.5 scissors out of 5.