by Paul Costello
For the latest wander into the Horror Vault, we’ll be taking a look at what it means to be haunted. Whether the subject is a person or place, that which is haunted is possessed by something inescapable, an echo of the past that refuses to leave, marking that person or place until the cause is either exorcised or it consumes them entirely. The idea of being haunted needn’t have anything to any kind of literal spiritual inhabitant or ghost, but simply the unshakable feeling that something inside is amiss, a metaphorical shadow that has a literal effect on the person that carries it. Sometimes this effect can be frightening, even dangerous. Sometimes the haunting can move from a grim psychological shadow and become a terrifying supernatural presence. And here we find one such haunted individual in Lovely Molly.
For the latest wander into the Horror Vault, we’ll be taking a look at what it means to be haunted. Whether the subject is a person or place, that which is haunted is possessed by something inescapable, an echo of the past that refuses to leave, marking that person or place until the cause is either exorcised or it consumes them entirely. The idea of being haunted needn’t have anything to any kind of literal spiritual inhabitant or ghost, but simply the unshakable feeling that something inside is amiss, a metaphorical shadow that has a literal effect on the person that carries it. Sometimes this effect can be frightening, even dangerous. Sometimes the haunting can move from a grim psychological shadow and become a terrifying supernatural presence. And here we find one such haunted individual in Lovely Molly.
Lovely Molly comes to us from Eduardo Sánchez who, along with Daniel Myrick, co-wrote and co-directed The Blair Witch Project back in 1999. Sánchez didn’t really have a hand in actively making anything again until 2006’s Altered, which was then followed by 2008’s Seventh Moon (and a web series called ParaAbnormal in 2009). None of these projects really recaptured the success or sheer force of The Blair Witch Project, which was as much really more an event than a film (though I still think is a good film). However, there were thematic recurrences in his work, settings that would create a familiar backdrop against which his stories would play out. A handful of characters, a preoccupation with past having effects in the present, a sense of remote isolation, typically set in wooded areas, and a degree of uncertainty about what is really happening. The Blair Witch Project obviously touches on all of these points, particularly on that last one, with a great deal of the terror experienced by the characters coming from the uncertainty of the source of the torment (was it a crazed killer of the urban legend, was it the Blair Witch, or was it something else entirely?).
With 2011’s Lovely Molly, many of these facets return to the fore, but it’s the overall notion of ambiguity that really pervades the majority of the film. As it is, it follows a newlywed couple, Tim (Johnny Lewis) and Molly (Gretchen Lodge), who move into the old countryside home of her long deceased father, the home in which Molly and her sister Hannah (Alexandra Holden) grew up. Eerie goings-on begin to build in the couple’s home and an incredibly painful past within these walls starts to take hold of Molly.
With 2011’s Lovely Molly, many of these facets return to the fore, but it’s the overall notion of ambiguity that really pervades the majority of the film. As it is, it follows a newlywed couple, Tim (Johnny Lewis) and Molly (Gretchen Lodge), who move into the old countryside home of her long deceased father, the home in which Molly and her sister Hannah (Alexandra Holden) grew up. Eerie goings-on begin to build in the couple’s home and an incredibly painful past within these walls starts to take hold of Molly.
The film opens in a manner that may strike one as somewhat familiar territory for one of the folks behind Blair Witch. What we see is video footage filmed by Molly, the camera pointed at her as she tearfully and fearfully confesses that she can’t go on. It’s a moment that, if you are aware of the director’s biggest hit, could seem to be treading on old ground. That the film continues with what would seem to be a “found footage”-style approach to storytelling, breaking as it does almost immediately into the couple’s wedding video. From here, the method of narration reverts to a more standard approach, told through cameras not in-universe. The first-person perspective is one that does returns throughout the film, but it should be made clear here and now that this is not a “found footage” movie, but rather one that periodically adopts a POV perspective in certain instances. It may be tempting for some to dismiss this as a hangover affectation of the filmmaker, him falling back on a cheap method that happened to be back in vogue by the time of the film being made. However, this is to deny the sparing and sophisticated use of the POV method, which I shall return to shortly.
Returning to the notion of ambiguity, the crux of much of what we see in the film comes from both what we are shown and what we grow to learn over the course of the running time. Molly has a troubled past… a seriously troubled past, the source of which becomes very clearly rooted within the house in which she now lives. (The natural question as to why she would live in that house is answered in a way, though it does clearly hold a greater significance in terms of Freud’s psychoanalytic notion of what the basement represents within the human psyche as a place to store past events and traumas). Molly grew up as a child abused by her father, where her mother wasn’t there and her sister did what she could to protect her, but couldn’t be around all the time.
Returning to the notion of ambiguity, the crux of much of what we see in the film comes from both what we are shown and what we grow to learn over the course of the running time. Molly has a troubled past… a seriously troubled past, the source of which becomes very clearly rooted within the house in which she now lives. (The natural question as to why she would live in that house is answered in a way, though it does clearly hold a greater significance in terms of Freud’s psychoanalytic notion of what the basement represents within the human psyche as a place to store past events and traumas). Molly grew up as a child abused by her father, where her mother wasn’t there and her sister did what she could to protect her, but couldn’t be around all the time.
Molly was never alone in this house, and her need to escape by any means became vital. The manner in which Molly has tried to cope with her traumatic past, which she would appear to have put behind her now, soon become the reasons that her loved ones won’t believe her when her troubles begin (similar to the idea used in the 2013 remake of The Evil Dead, whereby everyone rejects the panicked warnings of one character because she is a drug addict). Is Molly crazy? Is what she is experiencing the fault of her own tortured psyche? Or is there something deeper and infinitely more sinister behind it all? We’re given no small amount of evidence for either perspective, both in what we see done to her (Molly is assaulted at work, though when she is made to watch the footage by her boss, there is no one there but her) and what we see her do to others (Molly’s horrible attack on Tim is only the beginning).
It’s here where the significance of the POV approach comes in. With Molly’s behaviour constantly being questioned and her stories being dismissed, she naturally feels the need to try and prove what she is saying, and so tries to document her torment on camera. The resultant footage is at once both chilling and damning, even sometimes managing to be nicely metaphorical. One scene in which a concerned but frustrated Tim tries to coax a terrified Molly out of the closet, and the perspective has him looming over her in the doorway, conjuring the image of an adult towering ominously over a frightened child. And then there are the times that whilst we can be sure that Molly is the one holding the camera, it’s not Molly whose gaze we share. And that point starts to become more disturbingly convincing when the camera ventures out into the woods behind the house, looking for something. Given the mental fracturing that she experiences, it’s difficult to really say whether or not Molly has completely disconnected from herself and fallen into another identity, or if this is in fact a confirmed indication of something more evil, more supernatural, a form of possession. In either case, the nature of this mental break/other identity/possession would seem to indicate something horrifying… that Molly’s father has once again taken hold of her. For good.
Lovely Molly is a tragic and incredibly unsettling film, with implications that only deepen the despair after the film has ended. Eduardo Sánchez has crafted a palpable sense of dread and an ominous atmosphere, with the sound design and score only adding to the already menacing mood that pervades the film from beginning to end. The whole cast do a great job, but it’s Gretchen Lodge’s central performance that takes the full weight of the film, moving from a sweet and happy Molly to an utterly emotional wreck to a young woman deadened, hollow, haunted. It’s an incredibly brave turn from a young actress of whom we should most certainly be seeing more.
It’s here where the significance of the POV approach comes in. With Molly’s behaviour constantly being questioned and her stories being dismissed, she naturally feels the need to try and prove what she is saying, and so tries to document her torment on camera. The resultant footage is at once both chilling and damning, even sometimes managing to be nicely metaphorical. One scene in which a concerned but frustrated Tim tries to coax a terrified Molly out of the closet, and the perspective has him looming over her in the doorway, conjuring the image of an adult towering ominously over a frightened child. And then there are the times that whilst we can be sure that Molly is the one holding the camera, it’s not Molly whose gaze we share. And that point starts to become more disturbingly convincing when the camera ventures out into the woods behind the house, looking for something. Given the mental fracturing that she experiences, it’s difficult to really say whether or not Molly has completely disconnected from herself and fallen into another identity, or if this is in fact a confirmed indication of something more evil, more supernatural, a form of possession. In either case, the nature of this mental break/other identity/possession would seem to indicate something horrifying… that Molly’s father has once again taken hold of her. For good.
Lovely Molly is a tragic and incredibly unsettling film, with implications that only deepen the despair after the film has ended. Eduardo Sánchez has crafted a palpable sense of dread and an ominous atmosphere, with the sound design and score only adding to the already menacing mood that pervades the film from beginning to end. The whole cast do a great job, but it’s Gretchen Lodge’s central performance that takes the full weight of the film, moving from a sweet and happy Molly to an utterly emotional wreck to a young woman deadened, hollow, haunted. It’s an incredibly brave turn from a young actress of whom we should most certainly be seeing more.
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