In a New Jersey high school, Abigail, a quiet, worried-looking student who’s the protagonist of “Blame,” returns to classes after some time away. Fellow students jeer and call her “psycho” and “Sybil.” (The name refers to the 1970s best seller and its television adaptations, about a woman with multiple personalities.) But soon she’s taken under the wing of a new teacher, Jeremy, a former actor, who assigns Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” for a project. And he casts Abigail in the role of — you’ll never guess — Abigail. This arouses the ire of many, particularly Melissa, a punky “popular” girl who’s used to getting her way.

Quinn Shephard, who wrote and directed the film, portrays Abigail. The use of the Miller play seems intended to draw a dramatic parallel with the high school hysteria. But instead, “Blame” often resembles “Carrie,” minus the pig’s blood and telekinesis, and with drama class added.

Now in her early 20s, Ms. Shephard is not far removed from high school herself. But her movie, for all its frankness (not terribly distinctive from that of many, many other indie movies about troubled teenagers) does not resonate like direct experience. “Blame” is earnest but underdeveloped. At the same time, it’s overdetermined and often overplayed. As Melissa, for instance, Nadia Alexander telegraphs her hostility toward pretty much everything with a relentlessness that suggests that she studied acting under Godzilla.

Ms. Shephard seems to proceed from the fallacy that a steady stream of humorless unpleasantness automatically equals powerful drama, and lays on the portent accordingly. So, of course, when Abigail is stood up by a popular boy who had suggested a rehearsal date, it’s on the afternoon of a torrential downpour. By the time the movie gets around to depicting its evil cheerleaders in slow motion, its emotional credibility is down the drain.