Haunted High

Haunted High is an unremarkable exercise in hack work that got 2 stars only because of the all too brief "zombie frog" sequence. M.C. Gainey as a released spirit of a evil cult leader comes across as a poor man's Stacey Keach spouting off pre death puns so bad that Freddy Kreuger wouldn't touch them. The CGI isn't as bad as say Piranhaconda but it isn't any better than an old episode of Goosebumps either and Goosebumps is scarier. The bare bones plot of teens and teachers locked in school with demonic forces is purely a Chinese menu type of affair. Take one tired cliché from collum A and 3 bad scenarios from collum B. As for kills the majority of them take place off screen followed by a gush of blood on the nearby wall. Shawn C. Phillips is the most believable person in the cast so that says something right there. Danny Trejo is the stereotyped Hispanic love sick janitor but his good guy roles aren't nearly as convincing as his bad as roles and this is nowhere as entertaining as Machete. Rent that instead. The bottom line is as long as there are masochists that stay home on Saturday nights to watch this crapola and as long as there are sponsors willing to jump on board SyFy is gonna keep churning out the cinematic equivalent to Montezuma's Revenge.If you must watch it do what I did and fast forward through about half.

Given this is a SyFy Channel movie, the movie already have odds stacked against it. But every now and then these original SyFy Channel movies do surprise. However, I will say that "Haunted High" wasn't a surprise. Not even with a nice ensemble of actors and actresses as the movie has.

The story in "Haunted High" is about an evil headmaster who returns from beyond the grave to wreck havoc, torment and kill students at the high school. And it is up to the janitor and the students to put an end to the vile spirit and his entourage of ghostly followers.

It was so difficult to buy into the whole concept of the movie, because the storyline was so badly constructed and even worse brought to life on the screen. The ghosts were a little bit too real - too manifested in the flesh - to appear believable as ghosts or supernatural entities. And the death scenes were, most of the time, laughable.

There weren't a single scare or thrilling moment throughout the entire movie. Unless you consider seeing Danny Trejo for the first time in the movie as a thrill.

But for fans of the lower budget horror movies, then there is a good handful of familiar faces to be seen here. At least thumbs up for this ensemble of actors and actresses.

If you enjoy ghosts/haunting movies, then "Haunted High" is not recommendable. I rate this movie a mere 2 out of 10 stars. It was a real drag to sit through this movie, because it took forever to get nowhere. And most of the scenes that were supposed to be scary or menacing, just came off as spoofy scenes.

Haunted High (2012)

1/2 (out of 4)

The setting is a high school in New England where an old headmaster's spirit comes back to haunt and kill the students. It turns out this guy and his assistants were doing human sacrifices at the school and their spirits are back for some fun. HAUNTED HIGH is another incredibly stupid, incredibly bad movie from SyFy, which has very few redeeming factors. I knew I was in trouble because I was already bored out of my mind before the opening credits even started. Look, I know not to expect quality when it comes to turning into SyFy on Saturday nights at 9pm but at the same time I at least want to be entertained. This film here is pretty much useless to horror fans for a number of reasons but the biggest is that it's certainly not scary. I love ghost movies but this here will probably go down as one of the worst I've ever seen. For starters, as I said it's not scary but even worse is the fact that the CGI ghosts are all lame and the effects just don't work. It also doesn't help that the headmaster says bad jokes and his assistant is more annoying than anything else. The death scenes are all forgettable and the majority of the characters are just bland. I will say that I enjoyed Lauren Pennington so let's hope she get more and better work in the future. I also enjoyed Shawn C. Phillips here as I thought he brought quite a bit to the film. I didn't realize this guy was "famous" until after I watched the movie and checked out his credits. I also want to give the film credit for casting "real people" and what I mean by that is the fact that the cast features real looking people that you'd expect to find in a real world and not just those from a modeling school. Heck, even Danny Trejo shows up. Still, HAUNTED HIGH is pretty worthless and the only thing to really consider is if it's worse than SyFy's BIGFOOT.

The story for this movie is hardly going to win any awards and it sets the scene for mediocrity which really underpins this movie.

Danny Trejo could have phoned it in for a movie like this but didnt he really put the effort in, unfortunately he was the only good part of the acting in this movie. Most of the acting was pretty meh and the headmaster and female teacher he goes around with are pretty awful, and whats worse get a good amount of screentime each.

The effects were certainly done on a budget but at the end of the day this is a horror movie which fundamentally doesnt scare you. It has a few 'jumps' which of course all the worst horror movies confuse with scary and thats it really.

Its nowhere near the worst I have ever seen and for a lazy afternoon viewing it could be worse but I wouldnt suggest it was a movie worth seeking out.

I must say that i enjoyed the movie it is very cool movie to watch when you're bored the acting was not that bad as the not professional worked ghosts.They were so unprofessinal made they were so fake you need to make them a lot more alive the people to belive what they are watching and the sky at the ending above the scholl was comedy it was FAKE a lot so i decided to shut down the movie there.Anyway i will give it 5 stars just because i enjoyed it :D