Haunted High (2012)

good back-story, and good acting

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Blistering performances.

The ghost of a previous headmaster returns to wreak havoc and treat people to bad puns in a fairly poor haunted high school offering.I was attracted by Danny Trejo and Charisma Carpenter headlining the DVD box in Poundland. Well Danny Trejo spends much of the film locked in a cupboard and Charisma Carpenter is barely in it. And the UK DVD box doesn't feature the dreaded words "SyFy Channel."The cast is OK, mostly, the script is poor, and the horror is too explicit for non-horror audiences, but far too lame for hardcore horror fans.

Oh dear where do I begin with this one? I watched this under the other title of "Ghostquake". Really that in itself should have been enough to forewarn me of impending stupidity.Sometime back in the 1950's some snooty New England school was the scene of some gruesome murders and occult practices. One student, an ancestor, possesses some demonic gold coins and on showing these to a teacher in a boiler room, they fall from his hands. He picks up all but one of the coins and this is enough to awaken the spirits of the old headmaster and his assistant.Once they're out they wreak havoc around the school one evening trapping several students and teachers within and systematically set about killing them all one by one in inventive ways for what seems to be no real reason except it's in the script. Sounds stupid and it is. This movie was made as a tele-movie and it shows. The special effects look infantile, it's not scary or remotely interesting. I could't even laugh at any part of this and I was bored from beginning to end.No idea why Danny Trejo would want to be involved in this but seeing his name on a cast list these days is getting to be a clear sign of lame viewing ahead. Don't even bother with this tripe.

The demonic ghost of a long-dead school headmaster, along with his equally dead, but considerably more attractive, wife haunt a high school after a teacher dares to steal a gold coin owned by the ghost's grandson. Starring Danny Trejo as the janitor seeking his dead love,Justified's MC Gainey as the pun-afflicted demon, and the prolific Shawn C. Phillips as the token fat kid.As to offer a counterpoint to the other reviews, I didn't find this to be a bad SyFy film, much less 'the worst' and actually found it no be a nice change of pace to the recent crop of 'nature run amok' offerings that they've been airing as of late. The acting is all right for a film of its ilk and the film was a bit of fun, although granted, the groan worthy puns by the ghost are pretty bad.

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.