The Haunting of Molly Hartley

The new girl in school (Haley Bennett) has two dark secrets: Her mother is in a nearby mental institution for trying to kill her with a pair of scissors, and she (the daughter) is plagued by terrible dreams and sinister voices that only she can hear. From the barely relevant prologue set in 1997 to the cop-out ending that would make a statue groan and roll its eyes, John Travis and Rebecca Sonnenshine’s script is a multigenerational Xerox of Rosemary’s Baby; it’s almost as inept as the movie’s advertising campaign, which gives away the “surprise” ending on the posters. Director Mickey Liddell, unable to generate suspense even over a meager 83 minutes, tries to compensate with cheap scares—barking dogs, fluttering birds, screeching violins, all the usual stuff, every few minutes, like clockwork.