The Haunting of Molly Hartley (Freestyle Releasing)
Rosemarys Baby Grows Up
The new scary movie The Haunting of Molly Hartley is a disjointed, confused, mishmash of a film. It starts out confusing and gets worse as the movie goes on. When it ends it is just over, with nothing really explained in any way; but in this type of movie who cares. As long as you get a fright here and there and a chill along the way it does what it should.
This film starts with a prologue about a young girl meeting her boyfriend in a cabin in the woods. This tryst ends badly but has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Suddenly the time has jumped about twenty years and you meet a young girl named Molly (Haley Bennett) who lives with her father (Jake Webber).
Molly is starting a new school in a new town. The audience learns that Mollys mother (Marin Hinkle) is a patient at a hospital nearby. She stabbed her daughter and has been institutionalized. Molly is having a hard time getting over this (ya think!) and suffers from nosebleeds and headaches.
At the new school she catches the eye of the local hunk (Chace Crawford) who has a jealous girlfriend (AnnaLynne McCord). This girl tries to turn the other students against Molly. Mollys one friend turns out to be a religious fanatic named Alexis (Shanna Collins).
The movie is never clear on what the danger to Molly is all about. We know she has a whacky mother but there are other dangers at play, and they all center around her turning eighteen. It seems whoever wrote the script just threw words on to paper.
The one thing good about this movie is the acting. Bennett is very good at playing a girl on the verge of hysteria. Hopefully she will get better roles in better movies in the future. Marin Hinkle is also good as the demented mother. Hinkle became fairly well known when she acted in the TV series thirtysomething but she has not been able to get enough good roles to move her up a step on the career ladder. And so she ends up being good in bad movies.
The movie is rated PG-13 for profanity and violence.
The Haunting of Molly Hartley has such a vague plot that it will exodus theaters and not leave a trace of appreciation behind. It is a here today gone tomorrow type of film and wont be missed.
I scored The Haunting of Molly Hartley a booed 4 out of 10.
