As horror movies that weave “Scream” and “Dead Zone” plot points and gimmicks with high school homophobia and staring it down go, “Departing Seniors” parks itself squarely in “I’ve seen worse.”

Grace notes about sexuality, blunt treatments of bullying and a plot that at least has a certain character-driven logic to it give this derivative, self-conscious thriller a chance. The filmmakers take a number of ingredients, none of them novel or new, and make something less than awful out of them.

Javier, played by Ignacio Diaz-Silverio (TV’s “Primo”), is a smarty-pants/smart aleck senior at Springhurst High, a photographer for the school paper vying for valedictorian of the Class of 2019, with only his flip and funny ride-or-die bestie Bianca (Ireon Roach of “Candyman”) to share this peak moment with.

Because Javier is bullied. Because Javier is gay.

At least he has his antipathy for the other candidate for valedictorian, popular, rich and pretty Ginny (Maisie Merlock) to cling to. The fact that she’s dating Top Jock and Javier’s chief formentor Trevor (Cameron Scott Roberts) makes them Javier’s Couple to Hate.

But mere days before the end of the school year, students start dying of “suicide.” That’s what they and the authorities think is happening. But wrists can be slashed by others, deaths in the pool, in the locker room or on the hard pavement beneath the school’s roof can be “arranged.”

The viewer knows that some nut-with-a-knife and a “Scream” hoodie with a “V for Vendetta” mask has offed them.

It’s only when bullies brutally shove Javier down the stairs that he starts to pull it all together. A nurse’s touch, an inanimate object-gift that he reaches for, lots of things give him “visions” of who all these people really are, and what will happen to some of them if he doesn’t act, if he can’t figure out who might be the monster behind the mask.

The characters slot into convenient “types” — the rich mean girl, the homophobic jock, the closeted jock, the new same-sex love interest (Ryan Foreman), the supportive “cool” teacher (Yani Gellman), the sassy bisexual bestie.

“I have a natural confidence. Don’t hate on my air of authority!”

Roach makes her supporting role the stand-out character here, with a little help from the screenwriter. Bianca is tough, hip enough to get away with vaping in the computer lab and cafeteria (!?) and cool enough to “explain” the “The Dead Zone,” “The Witching Hour” “psychometry” that Javier is experiencing.

Because she’s seen all the movies. As have many of the rest of us, and there’s the rub.

It’s one thing to mash up earlier films to make an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink thriller. But your follow through is that you have to do something new with it. “Departing Seniors” has some decent suspense, a surprise or two, and a few things to say about bullying, if not about “outing” a still-working-it-out classmate in an only-in-the-movies high school that tolerates vaping.

But what we’re seeing never escapes that “cut and paste” feeling, a script as generic as the off-the-rack letter jackets that don’t have so much as a “letter” on them and as pointless as the “2019” setting this tale is told in.

Rating: unrated, graphic violence, profanity

Cast: Ignacio Diaz-Silverio, Ireon Roach, Maisie Merlock, Cameron Scott Roberts and Yani Gellman.

Credits: Directed by Clare Cooney, scripted by Jose Nateras. A Dark Sky release.

Running time: 1:25