WATCH: A gay teen has to save the jocks from a slasher in this wicked horror-comedy
Departing Seniors takes audiences back to a time and a place that’s probably a hazy memory to most of us: The halls of high school, in those waning days before the end of our senior year.It’s here that we meet Javier (Primo‘s Ignacio Diaz-Silverio), a queer Mexican-American teen who’s always felt like an outsider at school and, with just a short time to go ’til graduation, is ready to leave it all behind.Subscribe to our daily newsletter for a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.Well, except for his bestie Bianca (Candyman‘s Ireon Roach) and his sympathetic teacher Mr.
Arda (The Lizzie McGuire Movie‘s Yani Gellman), and star athlete Brad (Perpetrator‘s Sasha Kuznetsov) who he’s in a secret relationship—so secret, in fact, that not even Bianca knows.Other than those three, he never needs to see any of his classmates again—certainly not snooty class president Ginny (Maisie Merlock), or the rest of the hot jocks… no matter how hot they are.But when a run-in with bullies sends Javier tumbling down the stairs, he wakes up in the hospital and discovers he has a strange new power: The ability to touch people or things and suddenly have visions of the future and the past (it’s called “psychometry,” as Bianca tells him).Now, that alone sounds like a juicy enough plot device to bolster an entire movie—especially one about a senior who’s so eager for the rest of his life to begin.
But Departing Seniors still has another trick up its sleeve: It’s actually a slasher, too!When a creepy theater-masked killer starts picking off Javier’s fellow seniors, one by one, he realizes that using his new psychic ability may be the only way to save them.
Of course, if any of Javier’s high school tormentors are actually worth saving is another question entirely…The feature film debut of writer Jose Nateras and director Clare Cooney, the indie Departing Seniors is a thrilling genre mash-up packed with emerging on-screen.
