Haunted High (2012) Reviews

• SyFy have done much worse than Haunted High, but that doesn't stop it from being lame...

  TheLittleSongbird2012-10-07

  Generally I hate SyFy movies with a passion. Haunted High is thankfully not one of their worst, the zombie frog sequence is fun if all too brief, Shawn C.Phillips and Lauren Pennington are likable and while Danny Trejo deserved much better he does what he can. On the other hand, a lot of the film was lame. The rest of the acting is bland, but there is no wonder when their material was as under-par as it was. I had a feeling that the characters would be stereotypes as they always are when it comes to SyFy, I wasn't necessarily put off by that. It was that few of them were memorable or had any spark to them. They were further disadvantaged by some embarrassingly stilted dialogue that never rings true and by a story that manages to be both predictable and dull with no chills or suspense and the attacks and ending were too contrived to be believable. The music is also repetitive, while Haunted High is also very cheap to look at with very choppy editing and while the effects have been worse before in SyFy movies they are substandard here at best. So in conclusion, a lame movie but at the same time it could've been much worse. 4/10 Bethany Cox

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• The lack of ghosts and scary moments will haunt you forever...

  paul_haakonsen2013-08-21

  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.

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• An interesting premise executed very badly.

  hi_im_manic2012-10-07

  I had expected a low-budget made-for-TV SyFy feature, this is why I'll generously award this campy feature 3 stars. One simply cannot watch a movie like this and expect a high quality production, however viewers deserve to not face-palm themselves every 4 minutes. "Low budget", as most of us cinemaphiles know, is not a valid excuse for bad writing, bad acting, and... bad everything. The plot is like cheap fishnet stockings... covered with holes, transparent, and weak. Sadly, not as attractive. Some of the scenes are so illogical it's frustrating. A better screenplay, set and directing would have lent this mess some respectability because the concept itself is very intriguing. It's a good idea with potential, gone wrong. There are some unique kills, and I wasn't really distracted by overly bad CGI like in some comparable productions. I was too distracted by poorer qualities, I suppose. The dialog is so bad, it exceeds description. The bad puns tossed out by our antagonist before each kill were insufferable. Even if they were aiming to be campy, it still failed. I've seen better acting at middle school Thanksgiving pageants. The worst performance (arguably) was offered by Shawn C. Philips. He's no stranger to the horror genre. Perhaps he just did the best he could with the material he had? It's all terrible waste of several proved talents. Please do not judge the actors exclusively by this feature if you happen to be unfamiliar with their other work. If you're a fan of other Sy-Fy channel movies and are prepared for their usual shortcomings, you may not be disappointed. Admittedly, this is not their worst work nor their best.

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• with a bigger budget and some minor rewrites this could have been much better

  dien2012-08-27

  I think that my summary line says it all - this movie had potential. Unfortunately it faced the same obstacle many previous SciFi Originals had faced before. Insufficient funding. How are we supposed to believe the story takes place in a big school, when we only see one class of about 15 people? And the external and internal shots don't seem to match? A bigger building with more actors would have made this more believable. As for the story, there are too many things unexplained. Some are hinted at (like the student-teacher relationship between a female student and her music teacher), but they are not resolved. What was 'the cult' all about? What was the director's main goal (apart from aimlessly killing all the students and staff). The thing that bugged me the most was Charisma Carpenter. She was in the film for only two minutes and then got killed off. What the heck? Why not have her as a helpful librarian who knows stuff about the occult. Even with all those faults this was a rather enjoyable film. If you can catch it on TV and you like some mild jump scares, then I can recommend it.

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• Good Idea Goes Bad Fast

  aesgaard412012-10-02

  I was expecting so much from this movie, and I was bitterly disappointed. The previews of "Haunted High" show what looks to be a decent haunted school movie, but the opening exposition is weak and the plot gets even more ridiculous as the movie continues. There's barely a plot, only a body count. Once again, someone with a misconception of ghosts and haunted houses creates a movie that carries no logic and absolutely no credibility, but then, this movie was made specifically for SyFy Channel, so the budget could not have been that great. The plot involves a group of students trapped in a haunted school after hours by the ghost of a cruel former teacher who dabbled in Satanism, played by M.C.Gainey, better known as Mr. Friendly from "Lost," who is the most talkative evil ghost I've ever seen in an independent horror movie. As he goes through killing students, joined by a wild-haired succubus who crawls the walls, he spouts weak puns like a poor man's Freddy Krueger. The so-called haunting activity is ridiculous (the Biology frogs return to life), and I don't care how cursed a school is, ghosts cannot alter reality. (One student goes out the window to realize he's still trapped in the school.) What starts as a ghost movie turns into a splatter and gore flick. At one time or another, someone is always asking, "What's going on?" before predictably wandering off and getting knocked off as uncreative as possible. Charisma Carpenter also allegedly stars in this movie, but her character is killed as fast as she appears in one of the shortest movie appearances by a major actress for a character ever. Danny Trejo pulls a strong performance as the janitor with the knowledge of the school's past to save the students. Bottom line: what starts as a neat premise never goes anywhere. SyFy needs to stop producing tripe like this and go back to airing the classics, or at least hire filmmakers with some writing talent. The only neat thing about this movie is a reference to "Sinister Sites," the fictional paranormal TV series from "House Of Bones" which actually did star Charisma Carpenter so apparently these films might share the same writers. Bottom line: "Haunted High" is barely worth watching as a waste of your time, but if you really want to get scared, rent "The Others" or "The Haunting."

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