We’ve been kind of throwing quiet fits around these parts lately about supposedly great horror films that frustratingly remain unreleased (Trick r’ Treat, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane), and supposedly great horror films that get a limp blip of a release (The Midnight Meat Train, The Love Guru). As film lovers and horror fans, we have been wounded, have we not? Scuffed and bruised. Heartsickened. Battered, tattered, and saddered. Perhaps I’m overstating. We certainly have been annoyed, however. Tantalized by the possibility of a good horror flick playing on a big screen, but instead cruelly swamped with remakes, reboots, and the like-clockwork theatrical releases of the Saw franchise. It’s an affront!
Well, someone has heard our sorrowful pleas, my fellow horror fanatics. And then they laughed and made a CW-looking horror movie called The Haunting of Molly Hartley. Look for it in theaters this very Halloween. Thankfully they stuck the main character’s first AND last name (what, no middle initial?) in the movie’s title – I need some pre-specifics before I plop my bum into a cushy theater seat to see this thing. Damn right I’m going! I’ll be drifting in (led by my nose, of course) on the fragrant, pie-like aroma of the just debuted MTV.com-exclusive trailer.
The preview kicks off as every preview for every movie should – with a mother trying to knife her child into heaven on the floor of the family bathroom. Meet attempted matricide survivor Molly (M.I. unspecified) Hartley! It’s her senior year and, after that familial attack, she is just trying to put the pieces back in place, you know? She thought that covering her dagger scars with the latest fashions was going to be her #1 concern during her final high school year. Not so fast, Molly… the worst is yet to come. Not only is Satan or some kind of evil entity growing inside of her, she also has to act alongside Gossip Girl‘s dreamy Chace Crawford! The trailer isn’t exactly clear as to why, but it looks like poor Molly is going to be getting an evil makeover when she turns 18. There is something bad in her that wants out. It wants to maim. It wants to kill. And it’s attracted to staircases, looks like:
Anyway, click here to check out the trailer, complete with MTV tramp stamp, IF YOU DARE.
OK, I’m assuming you dared, have high-fived your monitor, and are now back. The movie, which wants to remind you that you might have helped make the similarly titled The Exorcism of Emily Rose a hit, looks to be a jumble of Buffy (the High School Can Be Hell tagline) and any number of Satan’s inside me type movies (for example, the Ackles-Sossamon classic Devour). As a quick aside, the movie co-stars Jake Weber, who gave an award-worthy performance (I thought) in the Dawn of the Dead redo. There’s a guy that should be working a lot more than he does. But it looks like he’s all jammed up in NBC’s Medium and only gets to make movies on his vacations. Might be time for a new travel agent, Jake.