HUGGIN MOLLY – found footage review

First, and foremost, Huggin Molly is a real-live folk-myth. She’s said to be a witch that prowls the darkness looking for children who are out after dark, who she then hugs and screams into their ears. 

Why?

WHO KNOWS?

Witches be like that. 

I just wanted to state that first, as I happened to look this up and lo and behold it was a for-real-real thing. 

HUGGIN MOLLY, thus, is a found footage film about this figure. 

HUGGIN MOLLY pulls two strangers together, each filming a journey for information. One is the twin brother of a missing woman and the other is a college student making a film about his college town. The missing woman had been on her way to a new job with her partner when they came across a woman crouched on the side of the road. It was night, so the sister got out of the car to check on the older woman when she stood quickly and ran at her, screaming. Desperate to find her, her brother heads to the small town to search for her, filming his journey as he goes. The student is working on a class project and wants to get a better look at a town that doesn’t want someone looking into its secrets. When the student discovers an abandoned car he goes looking to see if anyone knows whose it could be and comes across the brother. Together they try to get to the bottom of the mystery of what happened to the sister and it’s that search that brings them face to face with Huggin Molly. 

The feature debut of its director is pretty assured. It’s well-made for such a low budget affair, and the acting is generally pretty good. They do very well to not force big effects into it, and the only digital effect I really noticed was not that bad but just a matter of a hard match to get “true black” to match “night black.” Still, not bad. 

There is an interesting story here but it feels so haphazard that it doesn’t coalesce. We sort of learn about Huggin Molly, via a found video camera – the legend is much, much older than that would be, AND how is it still charged enough to watch the video? – but we don’t get enough to be afraid of her. We also don’t know what she wants. Then there’s the fact that the film claims 75(!) people have disappeared mysteriously…AND NO LAW ENFORCEMENT IS THERE SEARCHING? That’s bananas. It’s also one of those things that gets forgotten when you’re making a movie. You’re just pushing to make it and those details aren’t always the focus. 

Like too many of these films, things don’t hold together through the climax and I was left confused as to what was actually happening. There’s a resolution but you have to watch all of the credits to get a full picture of what happened to everyone and are still left with questions. 

As I say, it’s an interesting idea, though it is very Blair Witch in there (but, I mean, it’s “true” so I can’t complain really), but they just didn’t flesh out the witch enough to make her something to fear. There’s also the whole “Huggin” part, again, part of the legend, but, man, it just doesn’t sound scary. 

There’s an interesting aspect too in that there is footage that is inserted of other people searching for the witch and it feels like these are “user submitted”, though I didn’t find that for certain. It’s interesting, though here is definitely a part where you sorta cringe at the results.

They mention the legend of La Llorona, and I think that was what they wanted Huggin Molly to be like but they just don’t pull it off. It’s an interesting film, though a bit far fetched – a cop with hair down his back? Naw, dawg – but it’s watchable and doesn’t drag. 

It’s definitely worth a look and is decent enough, though not terribly memorable. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30700033/

2 out of 5