Haunted High (2012)

Good movie but grossly overrated

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This is a not very well developed SyFy film with Danny Trejo as a good guy. A coin dropped in the boiler room of a high school opens a portal to another dimension bringing forth the mass murdering grandfather of one of the students.The killer and his demoness sidekick are not well developed either. He recites corny lines as a Freddie imitator, although not nearly as cool. This is a PG-13 slasher film for the kids. Adults will be bored.Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex or nudity. Use of "b" word. Girls in school uniforms, but D.E.B.S. is better for that.

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.

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 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.