Darby and the Dead is, in theory, a fun mashup of a high school comedy and an “I see dead people” supernatural tale. Unfortunately, it barely has any original ideas of its own so the tired high school tropes and lazy supernatural bits result in a super generic comedy.

The flick is about Darby, a high school girl who can see dead people. She spends her days helping them move on… and not having a life of her own. But when a popular cheerleader dies, she won’t leave Darby alone. Someone is in desperate need of a teen movie glow-up.

I kind of enjoyed that the flick doesn’t create contrived villains or supernatural agents for our teens to fight. But that just leaves mean girls, misunderstandings, boy trouble, and other generic awkward high school drama. Generic high school drama can be good in the right hands, but here it just feels like a movie you’ve seen a dozen times before. It brings nothing new to the table.

Nothing new except occasionally the supernatural thing. Yeah, Darby’s friend is dead and no one else can see her… but frankly the story would be the same if she were alive and just pulling a generic high school Pygmalion (or My Fair Lady or She’s All That or Mean Girls or Clueless). There are random Boomer ghosts lurking around that need help, in theory, but they have no impact on the story.

Speaking of Boomers, the film’s grasp of social media feels a bit like the screenwriter has aged out of the demographic. Add in the old school needle drops and I wonder if this movie is really down with the kids, yo.

If the movie had been funnier, more clever, or more original, all those complaints would have fallen by the wayside. But everything about the movie is generic, trite, and done before. Just mashing up the genres wasn’t enough .

Score: 68