Homecoming (2005)

One of my all time favorites.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Blistering performances.

Joe Dante deserves praise for taking off the kid gloves and pulling no punches with this scathing indictment of the Bush administration and their shameful waste of soldiers' lives with their so-walled "war on terror" in the Middle East that of course was more about blood for oil. The central idea about deceased soldiers returning to life in order to vote during a major presidential election is both novel and potent; it's nice and refreshing to see a zombie horror outing that eschews the usual end-of-the-world apocalyptic angle for barbed social satire and social commentary that even manages a few genuinely poignant moments amid all the darkly funny tongue-in-cheek horror. Moreover, it's acted with zest by an enthusiastic cast: Jon Tenney as savvy spin doctor David Murch (there's a touching and surprising back story concerning Murch and his Vietnam veteran brother), Thea Gill as mean bitch author June Cleaver, Robert Picardo as slimy backstage wheeler dealer Kurt Rand, Terry David Mulligan as glib talk show cost Marty Clark, and Wanda Cannon as the venal Kathy Hobart. Moreover, the bold way that Dante and screenwriter Sam Hamm take the American government to task for duping and deceiving the public gives this episode an extra savage sting. An admirably audacious show.

This has to be the worse out of the first 6 episodes of Season 1 that I have seen so far. This episode was so bad that I created this account just to write this review. I have no clue how this ended up with a high rating. First the story was terrible. Watch out for the voting zombies. Second they present us with what seems to be a smoking horny author and the one scene where they could have given us some T or A, and they give us nothing. At least bad episodes before it had elements of horror (blood, limbs, sex, breasts). It seems in this series the lower the IMDb rating of the episode the better it actually is. Anyways that is my personal view and if you do chose to watch this, you will lose an hour of your life and never get it back. Even if your life is shitty, this hour is worse lol.

It might be less of a Horror episode, as most might expect it. But it's still "Horror" portrayed, even if not in the traditional sense. Dante does a very good job, with playing with your expectations and giving you something completely different. Try to stay open minded about it and you will enjoy this episode very much. If not, the result will be like the comment from another reviewer I read.The other reviewer expected a more Horror like episode. It's all about expectations. It is even more Drama, than Horror if you like to call it that. But it's the variety of it's themes, that made "Masters of Horror" so interesting (to me). A friend of mine felt the same way about this, but that doesn't mean that you have or indeed will like this Joe Dante effort after all.

The director of Gremlins, Piranha, The Howling and Small Soldiers, a favourite of mine when I was a kid, bring to us the sixth episode of Season One and the Vol. 8 of the R4 DVDs. Homecoming is a really good episode and it is not quite far of my personal favourites from Season One. This time during one hour Joe Dante shows his story in a political field (it is based on Dale Bailey's short story "Death and Suffrage"). Basically the protagonists work very hard in order to keep their president, of course these persons are no fools and they don't care about anything else so that's terrific for their work. These types of characters are very well known. The paranormal thing happens and it is fun to watch the reactions of the protagonists, the persons that must give some answers. For them is so simple, just like if the zombie soldiers doesn't do anything hat affect their campaign plans they will treat them as heroes, as citizens that have all the right to vote yet the truth is other so suddenly and obviously they want to kill the living dead. This time the horror has already happened, of course in the war and now anyone who still has something to say is in home again. Here we have the logic end with those types of protagonists and a complete squad of living dead product of the many wars.It is an entertaining episode but it is not a complete horror hour. If you ask me, there are at least four episodes of the ones I have seen of Season One better than this one but still Joe Dante has give us a good one. Oh and by the way I think it is the first episode that I have seen without female nudity.PS: "At the end when the zombie soldiers coming out of their graves the tombstones have the names of veterans of the horror and zombie genre, easy to read are: Jacques Tourneur, G.A. Romero ( George A. Romero), Jean Yarbrough and Delbert Tenney ( 'Del Tenney (I)'), harder to read are: Lucio Fulci, Victor Halperin and Gordon Douglas. The (readable) graves have this order: Romero and Tenney in the first line, behind them Fulci and Halperin and in the last line behind Fulci is Tourneur, who is in the middle of Douglas and Yarbrough". That's from the trivia of this site. Definitely I have to watch that detail!