Even the most rabid fan of horror films will find only shock-interrupted tedium in "The Haunting of Molly Hartley." Up to now, even the worst scare flicks have justified their existence through moments of well-designed, creative terror. This one comes at you uncertainly and says boo, but then slinks away like a vampire cowering at the sight of a wooden cross.

When it's over, you quickly realize you've been strung along by an uncertain plan based on a flimsy, high-school-level script. The filmmakers hope for a chunk of the pumpkin-season purse, but they've got precious little with which to lure you in.

An early sequence in the film should be familiar to anyone who has managed to sit through previous Halloween trash in which some avenger in a hockey mask rips apart anyone who seems to be having too much fun.

Back in the summer of 1997, a gorgeous girl named Laurel (Jessica Lowndes) gets assaulted for going into the woods to kiss her boyfriend. Her father arrives, Bible in hand, and tosses her into his truck while spewing venom about a wrathful god. He deliberately causes an accident, then cuts her to death with a piece of broken glass.

The underlying message, according to long-standing Hollywood horror convention, is that, because she felt sexual desire pulsing through her veins, she deserves to be killed by a religious lunatic. Powers greater than human are the authorities for such a judgment.

1 OUT OF 4 STARS

Rated: PG-13 for strong thematic material, violence and terror, brief strong language, some teen drinking

Cast: Haley Bennett, Jake Weber, Chace Crawford, Shanna Collins

Director: Mickey Liddell

Run time: 84 minutes

If you stay alert through that bit of perversity, director Mickey Liddell then shifts forward to the present, to Huntington Prep School, where the title character (Haley Bennett) has enrolled after she and her father moved to the area in order to be near Molly's mother, who recently stabbed the girl with scissors to protect her from evil.

Just when you think it's safe to laugh at such nonsense, director Liddell and his scriptwriting collaborators John Travis and Rebecca Sonnenshine supply a series of narrative options which, irrational and senseless though they may be, serve to provide closure. There's a point at which you might expect a final clash between Jesus freaks and Satan worshippers, but no. Apparently that would have been too easy.

Along the way, characters change for no dramatic reason, and Molly randomly -- and very easily -- breaks the arm of an unpleasant girl who has been taunting her since she arrived at Huntington.

The audio-visual style of the picture relies heavily on shock cuts and sudden music. For example, when Molly walks down a dark hall, a thunderous orchestral chord is sounded as she turns around only to see a friend, who then asks, "What's wrong?"

What's wrong is that drivel such as this has been sent out to poor souls in search of mystery and suspense.