Maybe after the Halloween season and the number of hardcore horror movies that graced our screens in 2022, it’s about time to lighten things up for the holidays.
Darby and the Dead might be that movie. Premiering on Hulu on December 2, the movie is a high school comedy full of mean girls and mean spirits.
This film is directed by Silas Howard. He has a long history in TV, directing episodes of Pose, This is Us, and the newest Quantum Leap.
Although not as terrifying as some of this year’s horror movies, Darby and the Dead is a lighthearted ghost comedy that looks like fun for the whole family.
What it’s about:
After suffering a near-death experience as a young girl, Darby Harper (Downs) gains the ability to see dead people. As a result, she becomes introverted and shut off from her high school peers and prefers to spend time counseling lonely spirits who have unfinished business on earth. But all that changes when Capri (Cravalho), the Queen Bee of the school’s most exclusive clique, unexpectedly dies in a freak hair straightening accident, resulting in the obvious cancellation of her upcoming “Sweet 17.”
Capri, however, pleads with Darby from the other side to intervene and convince Capri’s friends to proceed with the party as planned. In order to appease the wrath of the undead diva, Darby must emerge from her self-imposed exile and reinvent herself — which along the way allows her to find new joy back in the land of the living. “Darby and the Dead” stars Riele Downs, Auli’i Cravalho, Chosen Jacobs, Asher Angel, Wayne Knight, with Derek Luke and Tony Danza, and is directed by Silas Howard.
The screenplay is by Becca Greene, based on a story by Wenonah Wilms, and the producers are Adam Saunders and Eddie Rubin, with Michele Weisler and Mac Hendrickson serving as executive producers.
