Ah yes, The Haunting of Molly Hartley. A movie so misguided and that lays on the religious fanaticism so thick, I can't help but spit vitriol all over it. Portrayed in the trailer as a ghost story and firmly aimed at a Tween crowd who have little, to no, experience with the genre, this plays out like a poorly made "Movie of the Week" television production that trots out all sorts of teenage clichés while having the bare minimum of supernatural elements - so little, in fact, that I spent most of the films (thankfully) short 85 minute running time wondering just when the Hell the haunting of the title was going to occur.

And even though the opening scene, which starts on the stupid foot by having a teenaged girl follow some string through the woods covered in post-it notes while hearing voices before ending quite well with her loony father catching her meeting up with her boyfriend and killing her in a crazy rage, isn't that bad from that point forward this becomes an insult to the intelligence of not only long-time horror fans but even it's younger, more ingenuous, target audience.

Flash forward to present day where Molly (Haley Bennett) is being haunted by bad dreams. On top of that, she's moved to a new town with her dad and has to deal with being the "new kid" at Huntington prep school. And if that's not enough of a slap to her face, her mother's a nutcase who tried to kill her with a pair of scissors and her dreams may be caused by a benign brain tumour. It's doubtful there's ever been such a sad-sack protagonist than Molly.

Most of The Haunting of Molly Hartley hinges on Molly's time at the strict school as she's befriended by Jesus freak fellow student Alexis (Shanna Collins) who tries to convert her and get her to Church, is hit on by football jock Jason (Chace Crawford), and somehow falls into a friendship with the rebellious Leah (Shannon Woodward). Scripters John Travis and Rebecca Sonnenshine also pile on a bunch of crappy jargon about Molly "becoming" and toss in a cult and one high-falutin' conspiracy and twist during the finale. But in order to get to this ridiculous ending, we have to first wade through too many scenes of routine teen characters babbling on and the barely there scenes of supernatural while director Mickey Liddell (producer of such films as Go and the recent The Collector making his debut) tosses in as many fake scares as he can to try and lull you out of your boredom coma.

There's two things working against this even being remotely entertaining: a script that has no idea how to build any suspense and is content piling on religion rather than scares and the fact there's no real "haunting" - I assume they were trying to make the title allude to her being haunted by her past, but I'd much of preferred some ghosts to show-up and reek some havoc.

In the lead, Bennett gets the chance to stretch her "I'm looking scared" muscles and freak out a few times (and also gets to break a girls arm during an unintentionally funny moment at a party) and is backed-up by a bunch of young faces who have a fairly large background in television. Crawford is probably the most known here having appeared on "Gossip Girl" but he's just your standard nice guy character. If anyone makes an impression it's Collins and Woodward. Collins does all right as the mousy, religious girl and Woodward isn't bad - they're just stuck doing by-the-book characterizations with no real depth behind them.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley has absolutely nothing going for it. It's a muddled mess of a movie with little to appeal to its target demographic (apart from the fourteen and under crowd proclaiming, "OMG! Crawford is so hotttt!!") and definitely has nothing to offer to horror fans. In short, avoid it. (Chris Hartley, 8/26/09)

Directed By: Mickey Liddell.
Written By: John Travis, Rebecca Sonnenshine.

Starring: Haley Bennett, Jake Weber, Chace Crawford, Shannon Woodward.