This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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.

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."

After becoming stranded in a high school, a group of students find the cause to be a reawakened spirit of a demonic headmaster and his minions, forcing them to battle the deadly spirits to get away alive.This here turned out to be one of the more impressive and enjoyable Sci- Fi Channel original films. One of the more impressive elements here is the rather nice suspense displayed, which comes from the exceptional use of the creepy-looking school location throughout here with its endless corridors and hallways littered with lockers and others that showcase the locations of the school after dark which comes off incredibly well. Those are furthered by the film's best aspect as the early actions of them trapped inside as these are strongly built-up using the concept of the earthquakes, strange remarks of the ghosts on the PA system as well as the gradual realization of them being stuck here in rather nefarious set-ups which make the burgeoning mystery a lot more chilling than expected. As those are combined with their tormenting the students and faculty throughout with all manners of tactics including reanimation of dead bodies, hallucinations of every kind from the twisting of reality to keeping them at odds with reality and mind tricks comes together for a strong series of scenes here featuring the attack by the demon in the locker-room shower, the great sequence in the science lab of the frogs running amuck or the general teases here of turning the floors of the hallways into glue, disappearing and vanishing again during an attack or just generally teasing and toying with them for the sheer fun of it all which is where this one comes off as fun as it does. These scenes do have a rather cheesy and goofy tone and feel throughout here for the majority of it's scenes by keeping the action going along nicely, and when combined with the nice gore from the high body-count make for a great time overall. There's only a few small problems here, most of which come from the ending's fantasy-derived solution, as it's just way too overblown and goofy against the more intense sections elsewhere in here with the ghosts displaying energy weapons, supernatural powers and much more, turning it into an overall goofy tone that goes against the rest of the film quite obviously. as well, the atrocious CGI and rather lame story that never makes any sense do drive this down somewhat, as a whole this was quite a bit of fun.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity

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.