Monday, December 1, 2008

The Haunting of Molly Hartley

Writing about the Leominster 10 reminded me of the first movie I saw there, a little over a week ago, a few days before Twilight. Like the vampire flick, this was pure teen fare, and I had the luck to see it on a Friday evening as the only "adult" in an auditorium full of the high school crowd. I didn't mind paying the full evening price of eight bucks.

From the title, I figured that The Haunting of Molly Hartley was straight-up ghost story, but it turned out to be in the genre of Rosemary's Baby. The straightforward inclusion of psycho evangelical Christians somewhat startled me in a pleasing way. They weren't pulling any punches. The "baptism-gone-horribly-wrong" scene is absolutely precious and not to be missed, if you like blasphemous horror.

The movie came in at around ninety minutes, and I felt the ending was a bit rushed, leaving one of the supporting character subplots dangling. But better that than drawn out and boring. All in all, it was exactly what I hoped it would be, and not much more. The low-budget feel brought me back to watching these kinds of movie in high school, which is not an unpleasant feeling---the kind of quintessential movie pleasure that I love recapturing.

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