University of Oklahoma grad and film producer Mickey Liddell makes his directorial debut with "The Haunting of Molly Hartley," a not-bad, PG-13 horror movie set at a nose-in-the-air prep school. Calling it "not-bad" both is and isn't a compliment "? isn't, because "not bad" doesn't mean good, and is, because "not bad" is higher praise than most of these tepid, low-budget, derivative shockers get.
Molly (Haley Bennett, "College," "Music and Lyrics") and her dad, Robert (Jake Weber, "Dawn of the Dead," and TV's "Medium") are trying to "start a new life" after her mom, Jane (Marin Hinkle, "Quarantine," TV's "Two and a Half Men") is enrolled in the laughing academy for stabbing her daughter with a pair of scissors. What a cutup.
Molly becomes a student at this prep school, maybe so the attractive Bennett can wear a uniform and we'll think this is one of those scary Japanese ghost flicks like "The Ring" and "The Grudge." Let's just list the new-girl-in-school clich
