Horror for ’tweens fails again

It’s that time of year again when movie studios dump their obligatory teen horror flicks on the masses for Halloween consumption.

This is the genre where slasher flicks like “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and the goth-tastic “The Craft” are considered ’90s classics.

But even if you go into the film with subterranean expectations, what can you reasonably expect from “The Haunting of Molly Hartley?”

Not much.

“Molly Hartley” revolves around its title character’s (played by Haley Bennett) struggle to fit in at a new prep school while systematically morphing into an evil agent of Satan (due to a deal with the devil her parents made when she was born).

The school is filled with all your favorite rich kid cliches: the Big Man on Campus who’s cool and somewhat of a bad boy (played by Chace Crawford from “Gossip Girl”) his jealous and vindictive girlfriend, the too-cool-for-school rebel who spends more time getting high in the ladies’ room than she does in class and the hyper-friendly Christian girl that is perpetually mocked for her beliefs.

With its predicable plot – save the somewhat surprise ending – and the young actors walking through their roles, the burden of the movie’s success is placed on the shoulders of first-time feature director Mickey Liddell.

Channeling his inner amateur M. Night Shyamalan, he attempts to inject tension in every scene with a menacing score and objects (sometimes ghosts, but most of the time something mundane) popping into frame. Liddell gets an A for effort but an F for execution.

“Molly Hartley” is nothing more than a vehicle for it’s hot up-and-coming stars Bennett and Crawford. Crawford has the physical aesthetics to be a future leading man. But his frosted-tip highlights can’t save this film from being a typical horror-light film for ’tweens.