The Haunting of Molly Hartley

This weekend, my wife was watching TV and saw a commercial for The Haunting of Molly Hartley, now on DVD. A huge fan of horror films of all shapes, sizes and flavors, she said she wanted to see it. We secured a copy to watch at home and popped it in.

Hoe.

Lee.

Shit.

The horror genre will always be home to some of the most notoriously awful films ever made. Jaws 3D and Manos: The Hands of Fate come to mind as infamously unwatchable. But both those films connote a legacy of awfulness that Molly Hartley simply will never be able to match. It was just........ that bad.

First, let's explore the redeeming qualities. The marketing company who created the TV spots and trailers for the movie are editing geniuses, for one. They took several clips of footage out of this film and transformed them into an intriguing 30-second blip that made the film seem almost watchable.

Well, that's all I got for redeeming qualities. The premise behind Molly Hartley is that a bunch of actors and actresses from a few hit shows for teens on the CW channel were thrown together into what would appear to be a vehicle for their film careers. Molly Hartley is a 17 year old student at a presigious prep school with the contrived blonde bitch, the waifish hot guy boyfriend of the contrived blonde bitch, Molly's new friend the would-be-pretty-if-she-wasn't-a-bible-thumping-nutbar best friend, the guidance counselor who digs too deep into Molly's past, and about half a dozen disposable supporting characters.

Molly is not trying to fit in, she is just trying to survive school by acting like a complete douchebag to everybody around her. Why too many modern teen flicks write the main character as a fun-killing douchebag I'll never understand, but I digress. Molly is haunted by the backstory of her mother losing her mind, attempting to murder her, and being committed into an asylum shortly before the movie begins.

One of the earliest signals of this film's horridness lies in the script's explanation of said backstory. The writers felt the need to shoehorn this backstory into incredibly trite dialogue between Molly and her dad or her friends. Then the day-nightmares begin. At first I thought it was going to evolve into a cool zombie flick as I heard groaning off-screen, then I realized it was myself groaning at the poorly-executed "flashback" convention.

So I've summed up about the first 15 minutes of the film. Now I'll summarize the next hour in under one word:

_________________________________________________.

NOTHING happens. I could have left the room, cooked a cheeseburger, drove to the store for some beer and returned, and I would have missed nothing.

I was almost mildly intrigued again at the ending until I realized the main point of the whole goddamn movie (explained at the end) was just the basic premise of another movie from about 10 years ago.

I would say not to watch the movie but then if you do, you will come back to me pissed off that I did not drive to every local Blockbuster Video and Netflix warehouse and burn the place down just so nobody would have to sit through this film. I admit I give absolutely horrible advice. But if I say one thing you should listen to, it's this: stay away and never have kids because they will eventually turn into teenagers and bring this shit into your house.