Review: “The Haunting of Molly Hartley”
Friday, October 31, 2008 at 2:00PM | By Franck Tabouring 
Seen on: October 31, 2008
The players: Director: Mickey Liddell, Writers: Rebecca Sonnenshine, John Travis, Cast: Haley Bennett, Jake Weber, Chace Crawford, Shanna Collins, Shannon Marie Woodward
Facts of interest: None whatsoever.
The plot: Ever since her mother tried to kill her, Molly Hartley has been hearing voices and seeing weird things. Now she's about to discover a devilish secret her parents have kept from her for years.
Our thoughts: Mickey Liddell’s directorial debut “The Haunting of Molly Hartley” is an ugly mess. And honestly, that’s pretty much all there is to say about it. For the sake of offering you more than two sentences though, let me further explain why this amateurish horror thriller is a massive failure.
Let’s start with the brainless story line first. Haley Bennett stars as Molly Hartley, a troubled teenager who’s been hearing voices and having panic attacks ever since her own mother tried to stab her to death. But now that mom is locked up in a mental facility, Molly and her dad are ready to start over.
For Molly, this means attending a top-notch private school and meeting new friends, some of whom are a little weirder than others. Molly’s primary concern, however, are her constant hallucinations, which are close to driving her mad. With only a couple of days left before her 18th birthday, Molly is about to discover that the truth behind her mother’s insanity is more devilish than she thought.
If reading this makes you sleepy, I completely understand; I myself had plenty of trouble staying awake during the movie. No matter how bad a film is, I always stay until the very end to see what happens, but this time, I was seriously thinking about leaving the theater. Still, I decided to stick around hoping this disaster would somehow improve, but in the end, it only got worse.
In a nutshell, “Molly Hartley” has absolutely nothing going for it. The plot never shifts into second gear and the lame story barely advances, the characters as about as dull as you can imagine, and the numerous attempts by Liddell to scare his audience fail miserably. The film is filled with those cheap shock effects, but not a single one is scary or surprising.
The real problem with this movie is its lack of a decent script. Although we quickly learn there is definitely something wrong with Molly, all we get to see her do for at least an hour is act weird, having creepy dreams and having one panic attack after another. And if she’s not hearing voices, she spends her time listening to her friend’s religious mumbo jumbo or picking fights with her beau’s ex-girlfriend.
The plot does pick up some speed during the final 20 minutes, but the film’s climax is so ridiculous, it almost made me laugh out loud in the empty screening room. The cast is just as unconvincing as the rest of the film, with Bennett delivering a lifeless performance in the lead role. Also starring is Chace Crawford from TV’s “Gossip Girl,” but neither his character nor his acting is really relevant here. A mediocre Jake Weber plays Molly’s dad.
Freaky quote: “You have a great power in front of you." – Jessica Lowndes
The final word: A terrible story, bad acting, annoying music and disappointing tech credits make this stinker one of the worst horror flicks I’ve seen all year. If you do end up wasting money and time on this one, at least you won’t have to worry about it haunting you in your dreams. It will only make you laugh…
Article by Franck Tabouring
Reader Comments (34)
They are every where. in my child hood I also feel like some strange thing is around us, I guess it was devil who take on us in unfortunate occasions. When I first saw about The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008) movie just remind me it is the story on my head in child hood. Look like is an interesting movie to watch. Tonight I am watching on http://www.80millionmoviesfree.com
I thought that the story was pretty good, but the ending really made completely no sense.
They should have at least explained what happened a little better - suddenly her dad was in the mental institute and she was all fine and dandy.
Too many people died for stupid reasons, too.
I really agree this movie stunk.. In reality there is no ending to this horrible movie. More disappointing, how nothing even tied together in the end; I sat through the whole thing thinking there is going to be some amazing twist or something is going to make perfect since at the end. I was sadly disappointed!!
this movie was terrible. the attempts to scare people were ridiculous, just one pop out after another, and after a while they got old. the ending of the movie was the worst part. it went from her trying to kill herself, to her not caring about her father being in a mental institution, to her graduating and being completely cool with the people that tricked her into being the position she hoped to avoid on her 18th birthday. overall, this movie was the biggest waste of 10 dollars. for all of you thinking "well it looks decent, you probably have a bad taste in movies" you are sadly mistaken. spare yourself 10 dollars and go watch something you think is terrible like high school musical 3, it will probably be better.
I saw this movie as well and thought it was the worst horror flick ever! The ending was left too open. She is ok with all of the people who were trying to kill her? The one man who did try to protect her, her father...she doesn't care about anymore? ok. Not my idea of a good movie. Felt bad i made my date waste money on it.
i didnt think it was that bad...everyone hates it :o
This movie was horrible. It felt like you had to watch a movie before this one just to underatand it. The only upside is that the Haley Bennett and Shannon marie woodward were attractive. The story line moved to much to understand what was going on. I wish someone could explain the ending. If the same people and worked on the movie and they remade to not be so cheesy, it would be a good movie. The PG-13 rating knocked it down too. If it were remade with and R rating and the characters worked on their performance, it would be great.
i actually enjoyed the movie until the very end. the ned made no sence at all!
I liked the movie! Why does everyone say it sucks??? U SUCK!!!! The end made no sense though!! What really happened? Was it a dream or something! If she was a servant f the devil why is she so happy and schosing the course of life and crap??
I personally thought the movie was great up until the ending. What the hell was up with that?
i didnt get the ending at allll.
anyone actually get what happened?
For real, the ending blew... not to mention the whole movie.
Terrible movie!!!!!! Not scary one single bit!!!
I did not and would not spend a penny on this movie, it is SO bad that I
deleted the torrent off my PC after viewing it.
i have 2 agree with everyone when it comes 2 the ending of this movie. i didnt get it at all. the movie itself was ok, but not the greatest.
I'm seeing way too many reviews claiming that Molly Hartley's ending made no sense, and I'm laughing at them ALL- and not because I'm amused. Okay, I'm a little amused... but mostly just annoyed. People, the ending was intentionally self-contradictory... to the characters, to the plotline, to the climax and to the entire production for that matter. That contradiction was kind of the POINT of the movie- a joke at the audiences's expense, all of whom probably expected a more traditionally happy ending free of Satanic prep-school graduates. Bit of a low-blow as jokes go, but anyone familiar with concepts like irony or dark humour would realize that and be far less likely to complain that Molly's "happy" ending did not make sense. It was an admittedly poorly-executed attempt a "twist", but we should all be used to seeing that with these teen-slasher type flicks by now shouldn't we? Although I honestly wasn't impressed with the movie at all, I did appreciate what they were trying to do there. The plot was actually solid and consistent with the slasher genre. Had the script been handled differently in production and direction it would have worked.
We dont get it...the ending makes no sense and is terrible....she should have just gone crazy.....worst ending.....very upset
Riiight... and how would going crazy have made any more sense? The movie was lame- clearly. You don't get the movie- fair enough I suppose... but why were you "upset" by it? It's just a lame movie, remember? I'm just curious, do you have some sort of moral objection to the cynical message posed at the end (which you yourself said you don't understand), or are you just pissed because nobody drew you a picture? You really shouldn't let that upset you... I'm sure someone would have been happy to draw you one, but like yourself it seems nobody else understood it any more than you did. If anything, you should be relieved to know you're not the only person lacking common sense.
Of course I liked it! But hey everyone likes different th ings and there was no need for the review to b that cold hearted! It's people like u who think u know it all that make things seem worst then they really r. People come up with your own theory of what happened, use your imaginations, not everyone loses theirs! U can still b mature and have an imagination. I think when she stabbed herself she killed her good side and her evil powers kept her alive to continue in this world and when her dad tried to tell people what happened he was seen as crazy! That's y she says he is no longer her father to the doctor at the end! The end!!!!
the most stupidest movie ive ever seen, DONT WATCH IT!!!
If you don't like gore but like suspense and doing "detective" work while watching a movie then WATCH IT!!
i liked this movie. but then again, i like movies like this. i don't appreciate retarded movies where all people do is brutally murder and dismember each other, such as Hostel, Saw, or The Devil's Rejects. They have no main line except "oh some people wandered somewhere and ran into a bunch of maniacs who want to cut their tendons out". i hate those movies. at least Molly Hartley ha moments to make you jump, not moments to make you cringe and want to leave the theater. And it had Chace Crawford, which made the whole thing better :) I think it was better than people gave it credit for.
This movie was a COMPLETE waste of time. I'd much rather have been watching paint dry, Grass grow or sawing my arm off with a spoon, or worse watching another God awful superman movie.....But In the end this movie was nothing but a cheaply made cheaply produced and poorly directed teenage drama. Maybe Mickey Liddell should stick to producing, but he probably sucked at that too. Maybe he could handle a mop but I dont want to give too much credit. Save your money, your time and don't even pick this trash up off the shelf.
this movie was just really strange and didnt make sense at all. the ending i was hoping was going to be amazing but it was the worst. the whole movie is boring to the point where i could have fallen asleep.
DONT WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! ITS SO STUPID!
so they sold her soul. so does that mean life gets better not believing in god and selling your soul to demands??? the end sucked!
yea the ending sucked but i think the ending meant it was too late and she is not "working for the devil" whatever that means or entails
now* ^
ya... i watched the movie last night and it was really pretty good untilthe ending... i get it and all but they definently should have made it more clear
This movie was completely disturbing. It was so twisted. That is not the way your life should be. god has promised everyone eternal life and this just wasn't right. All the good people died and eternal life with Satan? No!
This movie was good, besides the ending. What Id liked about it was that good doesnt always win. The ending sucked though. There were parts that i hated and some i liked. I think that the movie was good well spent money it kept me on my toes trying to figure it out just seen it last night.
maybee it was clever (I dont think so), dark and a joke at the audiences expense, and some people may appreciate that, but this is a movie, and people watch movies (generally)to be entertained...I was not entertained. I don't think protagonists HAVE to live or prosper per se, however, In my opinion the director was the victim of his own joke, so laugh away!
Worst Movie i have ever seen. i personally just watched in tonight with a few others. did everyone eventually die in the end, what the heck happend. Horibble movie. I defenetly dont recommend to anyone; ANYONE!!!!
In the end, she chose not to kill her father, so her soul went to the devil. That was why she was with the people who tried to kill her and didnt care about her dad. I have no idea why her dad went insane though.
so what was she ? and what was she sopose to do after she became evil?
Excuse me, all of you who claim that the ending isn't confusing and is intentional, listen up. You might be enlightened. Clearly it was intentional. There is no need to be redundant in stating so. They would not have spent countless hours in editing and millions of dollars filming for an "unintentional" ending. And I don't think you had enough V8 today, because when people (I refer to the 10% margin of respondees who have lights on upstairs) say they are confused by the ending, they are not saying it was necessarily a bad or cheap way to end, merely that it was carried out badly and cheaply. The ending of Molly Hartley, the pivotal last two minutes appear to possess an extremely inadequate attention to detail. For all the panic attacks and nosebleeds, and not to mention the pointless and unrelated beginning (I say unrelated because it was never once referenced in the rest of the movie, thereby holding no significance in the mind of the patron and wasting a complete setup for characters that aren't going to be back even in conversation) the audience member feels that they have rights to a more explicit ending than, "oh, by the way you are a sort of demon thing because we saved you when you were a baby and now you are like us". What would have solved this dilemma you ask? Perhaps the writers could have mentioned WHAT exactly Molly "was". All these Christian fanatics were trying to save her soul by killing her before she transformed, but they never said what she was, just that they, "knew" what she was. Well it would have been nice of them to let us in on that little secret, right? And what did this therapist/maybe demonic woman mean when she told Molly her power would be great? In theory, this greatness should have been demonstrated for us. What exactly does Molly do now that she is like "them"? Does she steal the souls of other babies for satan by promising their parents to bring them back to life? Does her greater power allow her to bring children, adults, or the elderly back to life? I get the whole 'life is great' bit with her being the valedictorian, but as for the rest, we will never know, because despite your contradiction, we DON'T know what happened. The ending WAS confusing. And it DID cancel out all good qualities in the rest of the movie, because it left it's audience undeservingly confused over very basic things.