DETENTION

CONTAINS SPOILERS AND A LITTLE DISAPPOINTMENT

Sadly, this is not the Joseph Kahn movie that I fell asleep in during Frightfest (in my defence, it was the fifth film of the day, and the fourth midnight screening in four days), which I'm now looking forward to seeing when it comes out in the UK as I rather liked what I saw of it, although I confess I didn't entirely get it. But this is a completely different, and frankly unremarkable, high school horror movie with the same title and incredibly low standards of quality which it barely lives up to. I'm usually a fan of unpretentious teen slasher movies if they're done with a measure of wit and skill, and if the potential victims aren't despicable morons; unfortunately there's very little of interest on show here.

Back in the 1970s, an innocent kid accidentally died in the school incinerator after a stupid prank went wrong. Thirty years later, it appears that the vengeful spirit might have returned to terrorise a typically disposable group of idiots who have been given Detention for various infractions. Why them? Why now? As they're picked off one by one, can they figure out what the ghost wants - if it is really a ghost? Can the Principal (David Carradine, to whom the film is dedicated) help? Or the new history teacher, Miss Cipher, who seems unusually interested in the events of years past?

With a bland TV-video look, lack of stylistic flair and poor CGI effects, with its anonymous cast of generic teens (the goth girl, the stoner, the sports hunk, the cute girlfriend, etc) doing stupid things and frequently forgetting that they and their colleagues are in mortal danger, Detention is dull and annoying in equal measure. It has a twist ending that I admit I didn't see coming (but thinking back it's pretty nonsensical), and the teens are a shade more likeable than the usual sex, weed and booze-obsessed halfwits we've seen in too many dumb teen horrors already. But your life certainly won't be lacking if you don't bother with it. Massively unremarkable, and I'd much rather be watching the other Detention.

**

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