Tagline: I know what you are Molly Harley.
The Haunting of Molly Hartley movie storyline. Something evil lurks just beneath the surface of teenaged girl’s private school world – and it’s ready to battle for her very soul. Now, on the eve of her 18th birthday, Molly Hartley is about to discover the devilish truth of just who, or rather what, it is she is destined to become…
Molly (Haley Bennett) bravely tries to start her life all over again after surviving her mother’s bizarre attack on her in the midst of a psychotic breakdown. Now, in her posh new private school, Molly is finally starting to fit in, as she draws the thrilling attention of super popular rich-kid, Joseph (Chace Crawford). But even as she is thrust into a realm of hot parties and hallway gossip, she is haunted by creepy visions and eerie experiences that have her wondering just what is really happening to her.
Everyone wants to help Molly succeed in moving past her mother’s madness. Her father (Jake Weber) keeps a close watch over her. Her two new friends – the rebellious Leah (Shannon Marie Woodward) and the angelically evangelical Alexis (Shanna Collins) – each try to pull her into their different social worlds. Even the school’s psychologist Dr. Emerson (Nina Siemaszko) is doing everything in her power to help Molly get a fresh lease on life. Or so it seems.
Yet, even as Molly giddily flirts with Joseph and butts heads with Joseph’s competitive ex-girlfriend (AnnaLynne McCord), she can’t escape the chilling visions and voices that follow her everywhere. What do they mean? Why won’t they leave her alone? Is Molly doomed to lose her mind as her mother did? Or is a dark secret from the past pushing Molly ever closer to a completing a deal that will seal her future forever?
About the Production
It’s hard enough being a teenager – trying to suss out your identity, wondering who you really are and who on earth you’re going to become after you turn 18 – but for Molly Hartley, this journey takes on a terrifying new dimension of literally devilish proportions. For as much as Molly might look like an intriguingly smart, beautiful and innocent teenager, deep in her past lies a chilling secret deal that will put her very soul up for grabs on the eve of her 18th birthday.
Molly’s story comes to the screen as a psychologically driven, nail-biting suspense-thriller for audiences of all ages. Though it unfolds the tale of a teenaged girls’ frightful encounter with demonic possession, it does so with a haunting, restrained realism, devoid of gore and a built on a foundation of ever-ratcheting tension and fright. With its hot, young cast all on the verge of breaking out, and its retro style, THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY invites the audience to consider a series of intriguing possibilities as it moves towards its intense climax.
Is Molly just a confused teen with a wild imagination? Is she on the verge of inheriting her mother’s tragic madness? Or is she being pursued from all sides by the primal forces of evil -an unstoppobaly crafty Devil who sees her as the perfect innocent prize?
As director Mickey Liddell says: “I’ve always wanted to make a movie that would really scare people and get under your skin but that didn’t rely on blood and gore to do it. I wanted to make the kind of scary movie that whole families could watch together, and share in the fun of being truly frightened without being gratuitously shocked or grossed out.”
Liddell makes his feature film directorial debut with THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY, but is no newcomer to creating exciting, youth-oriented stories. Along with Greg Berlanti, he produced the highly successful WB TV shows “Everwood” and “Jack and Bobby.”As a movie producer, he has brought such acclaimed independent films as Doug Liman’s comic thriller Go and Berlanti’s award-winning The Broken Hearts Club to the screen.
Liddell had long wanted to direct and had been looking for the right project when producer Jennifer Hilton brought him a script about a girl whose soul had unsuspectingly been promised to the Devil on her 18th birthday. Right away, the idea of merging his fascination with the pop culture fun of teenage worlds and his love of classic psychological thrillers struck a chord in Liddell’s imagination.
As he and Hilton began developing the story with screenwriters John Travis and Rebecca Sonnenshine, Liddell began to see the potential for a teen thriller that would defy the typical gross-out conventions of today’s horror cinema. Rather than trying to push the envelope of extreme violence, Liddell and Hilton wanted to turn back the clock and do the very opposite. They envisioned THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY as harking back, in an entirely fresh way, to the more atmospheric chilling suspense movies of the past, with a story of subtly increasing paranoia and fear – all set against a highly realistic teen world of dating, best friends, mean girls and parental pressures.
“We kept making the story bigger and bigger as we developed it, “ recalls Liddell, “and as we did, the more I thought it would be really fun to direct. Two of my favorite movies are Rosemary’s Baby and What Lies Beneath, and this was a chance to go in that kind of direction while also working with youthful themes and a younger cast, which I’ve really enjoyed doing in `Everwood’ and `Jack and Bobby.’”
Liddell and Hilton were acutely aware they were now working in a long and illustrious tradition of films about the Devil’s unquenchable designs on overtaking the most unsuspecting of human souls — but they also saw a chance to add a new twist. “We kept talking about the idea that if the Devil was going to come to earth in the 21st century, he wouldn’t choose a politician or even a baby – he would choose a beautiful, privileged teenage girl,” says Hilton. “And that’s where the film goes.”
From early on, Liddell focused on keeping the fear at the heart of the movie largely interior and psychological. “I like fear that isn’t about huge monsters or gory effects,” he notes. “I’ve seen the current films like that and I understand why they work but I wanted to do something different. I wanted to go back to the days where the characters and ideas in a horror movie would really get to you, when it would keep you scared every time you walk into a dark room for days.”
He continues: “The story of Molly Hartley is one that you feel could happen to anyone, could happen to you. By keeping everything very real, it allows everyone in the audience to question what’s really going on and to decide whether Molly is simply going crazy and it’s all in her head or if something truly creepy is really happening to her.”
For Liddell, the specific brand of fear explored in the film is especially fun and fascinating because it’s also about the very nature of adolescence – with all its roller-coaster emotions, wild uncertainties and terror over what the future might hold. Behind the impending demonic possession of Molly Hartley lies a unique expression of the strangeness of growing up and the anxiety in seeing who you will become when you turn from a child into an adult.
“What I love about the story is that Molly is at this very scary place to begin with -she’s about to become a woman, she’s about to become an adult, and given her family history, she doesn’t know what that’s going to mean for her. She’s going through frightening things we all go through, so it doesn’t seem that unusual at first,” says Liddell. “But slowly, we begin to realize she’s heading towards a far bigger, scarier and more devastating transformation on her 18th birthday than anyone can imagine.”
To bring Molly Hartley’s spine-tingling tale fully to life, the filmmakers knew they would need to find an actress who could make Molly’s eerie discovery of her demonic destiny, in the middle of her Senior year of high school, feel alarmingly real. Working closely with casting director Joseph Middleton, they set out on an extensive casting quest. After seeing a lengthy list of leading young actresses, the search abruptly ended when Haley Bennett – the 20 year-old actress and singer who made her feature film debut as a young pop star opposite Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore in Music & Lyrics – auditioned. They knew right away she was the one.
“When Haley came in she just had the look and the attitude we wanted,” says Liddell. “We were looking for someone who was very beautiful, sensitive and attractive – and yet, at the same time, could also be the kind of girl who can blend in so well that no one notices her walking down the hall. She had to be someone who could portray a lonely outsider, yet who also could draw the interest of the most popular boy in her school. The most important thing was that you had to believe her emotionally — because everything hinges on the audience believing in what Molly’s going through – and with Haley you do.”
Adds Jennifer Hilton: “The key thing we were looking for to play Molly was vulnerability. We saw a lot of great girls who were very tough and didn’t seem afraid of anything but Haley had a kind of beautiful fragility that makes you want to protect her.”
Haley had been intrigued by the role from the moment she read the script, which took her by surprise. “I’m not really a big horror movie person,” she admits, “but this definitely wasn’t your usual horror movie. It was more of a suspense thriller for the younger generation. I loved that it had such a young, fresh vibe to it. You really want to go along with these characters – and then you get hit with this really scary twist.”
She continues: “I’m also all about always doing really different roles each time I do a movie, and I’d never done anything like this. I knew Molly was going to be a challenge.”
Liddell notes that Bennett had to show considerable bravery to relentlessly face down demons – both real and imagined – every single day on the set. “This was such a hard shoot for Haley because, in order to play the role as realistically as we wanted, she had to go to some very dark places,” the director comments. “She had to constantly be on the verge of breaking apart and it was really an exhausting, intense, difficult experience for her. She really went through a lot, but she had the skill to bring all of that to her performance.”
Haley agrees that she has never gone through a more intense process as an actress. Her character is stabbed, nearly drowned and plagued by nightmarish visions – but perhaps the most chilling part of all is her feeling that she is losing touch with reality itself. “It was very emotional for me because of all the things that Molly is going through,” Haley says. “But early on, I spent a lot of time with Mickey and we became very close. He really opened up to me about his life, and I opened up to him about my life and I really trusted him. The key for both of us was to keep everything really organic and honest. I tapped into a lot of my own emotions and also used some research and a lot of imagination.”
One of the biggest challenges of playing Molly, Haley says, was that just as she seems to be really getting her life together, her soul is mysteriously slipping away. “When the movie starts, Molly has just been through this whole tragic event with her mother, she’s starting at an unfamiliar school and she feels like an outcast,” notes the actress. “Then, when she meets Chace’s character, everything starts to change and she gains confidence. Just as she starts really growing and getting her bearings and coming out of her shell – she starts to hear and see all these things that make her think that, just like her mother, she’s going to start losing her mind. The pressure just keeps building on her — and it’s pretty hard to have a normal date when that’s happening.”
Still, Haley found good times on the set, especially with Chace Crawford. “It was really cool to work with Chace because we were already friends and I also think he’s perfect for Joseph,” she says. “He’s so charming and he really is great at playing the Golden Boy. It brings something fun to the movie, too, with Molly falling in love and then getting betrayed in such a shocking way. I loved that Molly is so giddy and embarrassed that this cute guy likes her and I had a blast playing that.”
Haley also enjoyed working with her co-stars Shannon Woodward, Shanna Collins and AnnaLynne McCord who, respectively, play Molly’s new best friend, the evangelical girl who wants to save her soul and Joseph’s mean girl ex-girlfriend. “I thought all Molly’s relationships at school were really cool and realistic and I loved working with Shannon, Shanna and AnnaLynne,” she says. “A lot of those scenes were a real relief for me, a fun break from all the crying and terror the Molly goes through at home.” Haley’s co-stars were equaly impressed with all that she went through for the role. “When you see an actor going through something so intense, you know to just give their space because it’s going to make for a better movie,” says Shanna Collins. “But as emotional as things were for Haley, she was always so sweet and nice to everyone.”
Even though she says “being scared can be a lot of fun,” the scary concepts at the heart of the story did at times start to freak Haley out a little. “I really didn’t sleep at all during this movie,” she confesses. “It was just the craziest seven weeks of my life. I trained myself to be scared all the time, so even the slightest unexpected noise or littlest thing had me jumping out of my skin. Suddenly, everything around me felt scary and everywhere we shot felt haunted.”
With everything that Molly has been through, she can’t help but be exhilarated when she suddenly finds herself pursued by one of the hottest and most popular guys at her new school: the alluring, handsome and wealthy Joseph. But why is it that the closer she grows to Joseph the more the terrifying voices and visions in her head seem to increase?
To play the double-edged role of Joseph, Mickey Liddell notes that he was looking for “a real Golden Boy, because if the Devil’s going to send someone into that kind of situation, he’s going to send someone who looks like a star, who’s always nice and wonderful yet who’s always mysteriously there around every corner.
They found those qualities in rapidly rising young star Chace Crawford, who rocketed into the spotlight with his role as troubled rich-kid Nate Archibald on the runaway hit TV series “Gossip Girls.” “We saw a lot of guys we liked but the minute we look at Chase we knew that’s who the Devil would pick for this job. He was just so perfect because you just can’t help but fall for him,” says Liddell, “and he gave us everything.”
As Molly begins her life anew after her mother’s attack on her, she seems to be surrounded by supportive friends, family and teachers – or is she? As the tension builds, and she begins to realize that the very ownership of her soul may be at stake, Molly has to try to figure who is really on her side – who, if anyone, can help her, and who is trying to destroy her.
At school, Molly befriends two completely different girls, each with a completely opposite view of life: hip, rebellious Leah who has overcome her own family troubles and the devoutly religious and nerdy Alexis, who believes Molly is in need of salvation. Notes Liddell: “With Leah and Alexis, I was thinking about those kinds of friends you have when you first move to a new place – those kinds of people you might not naturally be friends with under other circumstances, but they seem to know things or want to help you in some way that you latch onto at that time.”
This is especially true of Alexis, who is an outcast at school because of her evangelical fervor, but sees in Molly – or so it appears– someone who might be open to conversion. Leah, on the other hand, sees in Molly a kindred spirit and possible rebel in hiding.
Both characters were, in fact, cast from among the large group of girls who initially auditioned for the role of Molly Hartley. “We saw so many talented young women for Molly – and even if they weren’t quite right for the role, we knew we wanted to hang onto some of them,” recalls Liddell. Adds Hilton: “With both Shannon Woodward and Shanna Collins, it was clear they were capable of playing any role.” Shannon Woodward, who has come to the fore as a teenaged gypsy living a stolen life on “The Riches,” starring opposite Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver, takes on the role of Leah. “Shannon has that real, authentic edge where you can believe she is the kind of tough outsider that Leah is,” says Liddell.
Shanna Collins is another quickly rising young star who currently appears on television’s “Swingtown.” “Shanna is a beautiful girl but she also can have a very creepy appearance, and when we saw her we knew she was our Alexis,” says Liddell. Comments Hilton: “Shanna is able to display a great quirky quality as well that reminded us in some ways of Shelly Duvall.”
Shanna was immediately drawn to the project. “The chance to work with Mickey was a huge plus because he is so enthusiastic about the things he does, and I thought the script was so fun,” she says. “It’s a really special horror movie because you get the scares and the good stuff without the gore and the gross stuff, which allows younger people and families to enjoy it, too.”
As for Alexis, Shanna says, “she was just the perfect fit for me.” She continues: “I really love her character – and I always enjoy playing the really kooky character who kind of lives in her own private world other people don’t comprehend. You get more freedom to create with that kind of character. Of course, even though Alexis isn’t popular with other kids at school, she’s really not such a bad person. She’s just someone who’s very socially awkward, yet has a lot of drive, and is trying to figure herself out.”
Shanna made the decision with Liddell early on to play the offbeat character entirely straight. “If you went over the top, it wouldn’t do a character like Alexis justice,” she says.Having grown up going to a Southern Baptist Church – and participating in Baptist camps, mission trips and youth choir tours – Shanna was also instantly able to relate to what she calls Alexis’s “very deep convictions.”
Those convictions ultimately lead to one of the film’s most intense scenes, at the climax of the story when Alexis’ last-chance baptism of Molly turns into one of the most harrowing action sequences. “That scene was always important to me because I wanted to capture the kind of fear that comes into a baptism when you’re dunked under the water,” says Liddell. “Shooting it was intense, it was really scary for all of us.”
“Haley and I were just completely in the moment while shooting that scene,” adds Shana. Meanwhile, the one girl at school Molly is destined to never get along with is Joseph’s possessive and deeply jealous former girlfriend, Suzy. Once again, the filmmakers turned to another promising young actress who had auditioned for the role of Molly: AnnaLynne McCord, who is known for her role as Eden Lord in the hit series “Nip/Tuck” and recently starred in the remake of the horror classic Day of the Dead.
“AnnaLynne was terrific – playing a kind of cool, popular Mean Girl who clashes with Molly,” says Liddell.
For all of the young stars in the cast, it was a heady time. “It was really kind of special for all of us, because the shoot was just before we each started getting breakthroughs. We are all just so excited to be worked and then every day we `d be saying `congratulations’ to someone who was going on to an exciting next project,” notes Shanna Collins.
Rounding out the cast are two veteran performers as two of the adults in Molly’s life – who claim to want to help her, yet don’t seem to understand or believe the strange things that are happening to her. Jake Weber, familiar to television watchers as Patricia Arquette’s husband on the popular sci-fi crime drama “Medium” and to horror fans for his role as Michael in 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, stars as Molly’s father, a man still reeling from his wife’s psychotic breakdown, yet still concealing his own secrets about its true nature from his daughter. Meanwhile Nina Siemaszko, who starred as Ellie Bartlet on the long-lived series “The West Wing” takes on the role of Dr. Emerson, Molly’s seemingly sympathetic school psychologist.
Liddell notes that the Juilliard trained Weber had a particularly challenging role to play. “He is a father who is holding back a secret,” says the director. “We have to know that he loves his daughter but we also have to understand that he knows he has held something back from her that he shouldn’t have. He had to show a father’s love yet also reveal this kind of distance that comes between them because he never shared the full truth of what happened to Molly’s mother and what her mother feared would happen to Molly.”
Liddell continues: “Jake was terrific and he took this concept and really ran with it. You feel the distance between them, you feel his regrets and as the story builds to the final scenes, you feel his desperation for everything to be all right.”
The Design of the Film
The unsettling events of THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY take place in unnamed Every Town, USA that could be anywhere – which was Mickey Liddell’s aim while shooting in and around Los Angeles on an extremely fast-paced scheduled well under 4 weeks. Liddell worked closely with director of photography Sharone Meir — who garnered acclaim for the indie thriller Mean Creek and has also recently shot such films as Coach Carter and The Peaceful Warrior – as well as production designer John Larena, to forge a look for the film that would highlight its psychological menaces and thrills.
“I had in mind the horror thrillers of the 70s and 80s that had a really rich, lush look to them,” says Liddell, “and we used a lot of long lenses. The idea was to create a very warm, inviting world filled with this very textured private school, beautiful houses and cool parties – so that you get the feeling that if Molly’s life actually worked out it would be pretty amazing, but the whole time, the Devil is slowly going to lure you in to another view of things.”
He continues: “I would something that feel very classical and wouldn’t date itself. That’s also why we used prep school uniforms for all the teens.”
Liddell also had in mind a very specific visual style for Molly herself. “We made sure to always shoot Molly in places that were just out of the way, on a back street, places that have a sort of lonely, unfamiliar feeling,” he explains. “You never see her at a Starbucks or the usual hang-outs. There’s always something a little different and wary about her.”
Although Liddell tried to keep things somewhat light for his young and high-energy cast, he admits that’s hard to do when you’re dealing in demonic possession and abject fear. “It was a pretty tough shoot,” he confesses, “because we were moving very quickly and every day we were going to darker and darker places. We did have a lot of fun, though, during the party scenes – because after the intensity of all the other scenes, everyone just really kind of let loose.”
At times, the eerie and sometimes shocking events they were depicting really began to get under the cast and crew’s skin. “We did a lot of night shoots and one of the scariest nights we had was for the mental hospital scenes. For those, in an abandoned psych ward where there were still scratches on the walls from former patients,” recalls Liddell. “It definitely gave some of us nightmares.”
Yet, Liddell notes that nightmares can be their own form of fun on the screen, especially when they feel unsettlingly real. “There’s nothing quite like a movie that keeps you scared of the dark,” he says. “Everything we did on this movie, from the script to the performances to the design, was done to make the audience jump and keep them on edge while telling a story in which you never really see anything but people, because that’s so much scarier in the end than gore and monsters.”
The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008)
Directed by: Mickey Liddell
Starring: Chace Crawford, Haley Bennett, AnnaLynne McCord, Jake Weber, Josh Stewart, Nina Siemaszko, Jessica Lowndes, Shannon Marie Woodward, SHanna Collins, Jessica Lowndes, Marin Hinkle
Screenplay by: John Travis, Rebecca Sonnenshine
Production Design by: John Larena
Cinematography by: Sharone Meir
Film Editing by: Zene Baker
Costume Design by: Anita Cabada
Set Decoration by: Richard Augustine
Art Direction by: Helen Harwell
Music by: James T. Sale
MPAA Rating: R for violence.
Studio: Freestyle Releasing
Release Date: October 31, 2008
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