Departing Seniors

Every once in a while you find a horror gem among tons and tons of crap on the various TV streamers and this one is a good one for sure! The direction is on point and the acting is surprisingly good. Plenty of twists and turns throughout the story will keep you guessing. Saying anything else to avoid spoilers, but has "Happy Death Day" vibes with the better elements of "Scream".

Some Gory Gore hounds may be disappointed by the lack of blood and guts, and I doubt this one will be winning horror film of the year, but it doesn't detract from a fun "whodunnit?" teen slasher on a non-Hollywood budget.

After being bullied by his peers, a high school teen is sent to the hospital and survives the encounter with the newfound ability to see the past or future of those he touches which forces him to use the abilities to save his friends when a savage killer begins stalking and killing his classmates.

This was a fairly enjoyable and likable slasher effort. Among the better aspects on display here is the intriguing setup that offers a somewhat intriguing setup mixing together several different elements into a teen slasher. The early setup of the early life within the friend group getting a chance to see their life together with a look at the different cliques in the school who are at odds with each other as the jocks bully the other guy and his friend, making for a nice bit of sympathy involving everything being brought up. As these incidents bring about the accident that reveals his ability to see their past or future based on touch and a generally great grounding within some highly topical LGBTQ commentary, it does a fun job of adding a solid paranormal bent to the typical teen slasher it's set up to be. The other enjoyable factor with this one is the way it handles the approach of the killer throughout here. The central concept of hiding the fact they've been killed by having the killer perform everything to make it appear as if it was a suicide allows for an intriguing hook that's pretty enjoyable and makes for not just some impressive setpieces but a hint of intelligence from the killing figure. As the stalking scenes offer up some intriguing scenes of the masked figure going through the school and taking them out before going through the process of setting everything up for the suicide appearance, there are plenty of likable factors here that go along with the wholly intriguing look of the killer to give the film a lot to like. There are a few drawbacks to this one that do hold it down. One of the main issues here is that the pacing to this one is the lackluster and draining pacing here which is quite bland for a majority of the running time. As it takes far too long spelling out the series of subplots involving the students and their lives following the incident as there's a lot to unpack with discovering it's presence and abilities, the first half plods along rather limply with a lot it has to spell out what's happening and it all comes at the expense of the stalking action normally found in these kinds of efforts which can be somewhat of a disappointment. The other real drawback to this one is a disturbing trend of off-screen kills that we then stumble upon later that leaves the whole thing excessively underwhelming repeating the same thing for most of its kills, keeping this one down overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Well I can fairly confidently say that I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to and I was genuinely pleasantly surprised and impressed with the way it turned out in the end and while I will definitely say that this isn't anywhere near the best thing I have watched lately or even close to being the best thing in this specific sub genre of horror films... it still worked really well for me and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and that's really all I could have hoped for going in to this and was honestly even more then I expected, but I am very glad that it turned out to work so well for me as I really had fun with my time here and that's always a great sign. This is another horror comedy film that's in the same vain as "Happy Death Day" or "Freaky", where it's based around a slasher going around a school killing a bunch of people but there's also some wacky supernatural twist that gets thrown in there as well, for the previous two I mentioned those were a Groundhog Day type repeating day and of course a "Freaky Friday" type body swap... but in "Departing Seniors" the supernatural element added here is the ability to have visions whenever the main character touches something that belongs to a person.. either being able to view into the future or the past but not particularly able to control it. It's an interesting concept and I like the overall idea of it quite a bit but that also brings us to easily what the worst part of this movie was in my eyes. The absolute worst part of "Departing Seniors" as a whole is just the sheer fact that despite having a very unique, interesting, and very compelling premise to go along with it.. it doesn't really manage to use that concept effectively in any real meaningful way that would lead to this movie being any better than it actually is, and that is by far the worst part about this movie and also just the most disappointing by a long shot. It's a serious let down whenever they introduce such an engaging and intriguing part of the movie to only have it be used to absolutely nothing until the very last sequence of the film and every other time it's relevant it ends up leading to nothing and just serves to bring the characters to the location where something is going to happen without actually giving them the chance to do anything about it. It's kind of cheap whenever your main character can see into the future but fails at doing anything about it honestly, but it's a good thing the rest of the movie worked a lot better for me because that really dampened it's effect. While that is truly a fairly negative thing about this movie that wholeheartedly dragged it down quite a bit from the potential it could've easily had, it didn't inherently ruin the movie for me and I liked the rest of it way more than enough to somewhat justify that decision and still give me a reason to enjoy it even if I feel like they had a major missed opportunity there and fumbled the bag in one significant way.. it's honestly saved by the rest of the movie being pretty great at what it does and making for an extremely entertaining watch. Although; I wholeheartedly guessed the main twist of this movie within the very first few scenes of its opening act but I don't know if that is actually the movies fault for being obvious or if I just guessed well.. either way it didn't ruin anything about the experience for me and I honestly just felt gratified that I knew where it was gonna go. Easily my favorite part about this movie and really what I think it does the best is just developing it's characters and actually making them decently engaging to watch and incredibly emotionally intelligent and entertaining from the get go, this is both in large part due to the acting in this movie which is genuinely pretty amazing from the entire cast, and also the writing which while very cliche at times and not the best ever works perfectly for the story here and is even better when it comes to fleshing out the characters and their individual relationships with the people surrounding them... so even if it's not particularly great when it comes to the aforementioned supernatural aspect it's at least well done when it comes to emotional beats with characters and actually making them inherently interesting and compelling to follow through this journey. Most notable out of both of those things being the phenomenally done performances from the entire cast here but definitely most notably from our leading man Ignacio Diaz-Silverio who is perfect as the lead here and is extraordinarily entertaining to watch and his sheer range of emotions on display here is genuinely very impressive and especially when it came to dealing with another character.. Brad played wonderfully as well by Sasha Kuznetsov, and their relationship dynamic here was both gut wrenching but also heartwarming and at the very least insanely engaging to watch and they both did a fantastic job in their respective roles. Also I definitely have to mention Cameron Scott Roberts as Trevor who did great and his reaction to what happens was executed brilliantly - Maudie Merlock as Ginny who was the least interesting character here but still very well acted and she sucked to watch a whole lot, great mean girl character - Yani Gellman as Mr. Arda who did a great job as well - and most importantly of all the side cast here Ireon Roach as Bianca who was utterly hilarious and worked perfectly as the horror obsessed best friend comic relief character here and every scene with her was done amazingly and she was just very funny, especially her chemistry with our leading man which was great. Listen I'm not going to go around saying that this was the best movie I have seen this year or even close to being the best movie i have seen in this specific horror sub genre.. but I can very confidently assess that it's a damn good time that has some really heavy themes but they're handled in a very good way that makes it inherently very interesting to see unfold and had me hooked from the very beginning which is always a good sign for a horror film. It's not a fantastic slasher by any means and it really underutilized its main appeal and the unique quality it has but it still excels when it comes to everything else it tries to do and that's more than enough for me personally. While this may not be amazing it's an enjoyable watch that I think is definitely worth the time to check out and even though it can be very cliche at times and just a little too out there I still think it holds together well and it brings it all together in the end in a satisfying way. Not the best but not bad at all, I recommend watching this especially since it's free on Tubi, and if you're into these types of movies I can see this being great. Good.

Without ever having heard about the 2023 movie "Departing Seniors" prior to stumbling upon it, I still opted to watch it on account of it being a horror movie of sorts that I had not already seen. And without harboring a single expectation to the movie, I suppose writer Jose Nateras and director Clare Cooney had every opportunity to entertain me.

The storyline was sort of okay, though it was hardly something extraordinary. I mean, it was watchable for what it was, but the movie was struggling a bit with its pacing and having a mostly dislikable character gallery.

The acting performances in the movie were good. And while I was not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, then that was actually something that spoke in favor of the movie.

I suppose if you are a newcomer to the horror genre, then you will find more enjoyment in the narrative than I did as a seasoned horror veteran.

While certainly a watchable movie, this was hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing.

My rating of "Departing Seniors" lands on a four out of ten stars.

It's hard to hate on a film like 'Departing Seniors'. It feels like an inexperienced up-and-coming filmmaker taking their shot, and with a limited amount of talent they actually do a lot right.

Of course it's very sloppy in a lot of ways, and you have to look past that in order to enjoy it. The performances are often over the top - people yelling their lines when there is no need for it, for example.

The horror scenes aren't overly suspenseful but they are interesting. And it's a whodunit which is always a fun added layer to any film.

This is a film that means well and takes its best shot. Is it perfect? Far from it. But there's enough going on to keep it afloat. 6/10.