Recent Reviews
TV Review: Masters of Horror - Episode Six
By James VanFleet
Dec 7, 2005, 07:59

Homecoming hits like a firecracker.  After the earnest quiet of Chocolate and the slow-burn of Jenifer, here is an episode full of shotgun blasts, quick one-liners, bright production values, and none-too-subtle commentary.   It's exhilirating in almost every way.  In no way is it scary.  This episode is not meant to be frightening.   There are moments of chilling reality, but this is not a horror story.  Not in the traditional sense.

This should not be surprising.  Joe Dante, after all, created the Gremlins movies, The Howling, and Piranha.   All of those were horror films with varying levels of comedy.  But after Gremlins 2, he took a sixteen year-break.   He continued working, of course - he's responsible for creative efforts like Innerspace, Small Soldiers, and the underrated Looney Tunes: Back in Action.  In Homecoming, however, he returns to the groundwork he laid with his early efforts.   It's been over twenty years, but he's still got it.  And then some.

Homecoming opens in the middle of things, then backtracks to show us David Merch (John Tenny), a political strategist for the Republican Party.   As he considers a relationship with conservative skank Jane Cleaver (Thea Gill), trouble brews.  Soldiers who died in Iraq are coming back to life and shambling into voting booths.   Can the undead participate in our electoral process?  Is it legal for zombies to vote?  When asked, Jane points out that "the laws vary state by state."

The undead in this story recall Return of the Living Dead.  They have no weaknesses, and their bodies survive dismemberment.   However, the zombies are not concerned with human flesh.  They only attack when threatened and live only to speak their minds.   Dante grins at zombie conventions, but his own undead earn the utmost respect.  After one zombie dies (again), a volunteer solemnly places an "I voted!" sticker on his chest pocket.

Meanwhile, the not-quite romance continues.  It's impossible for anyone to parody Ann Coulter – she's already got that covered – but Gill provides some great belly laughs.   It's a broad type of comedy, full of dominatrix gags and empty-headed one-liners (sample exclamation: "Holy Mother of Hip-Hop Jesus!").  Tenny has the unfortunate burden of playing the straight man in all the lunacy, but his gravity pays off handsomely in the final scenes.

Dante and Sam Hamm work from an award-winning story by Dale Bailey, and they create a weird atmosphere: relevant irreverence.   Someone memorably refers to the newly risen as "maggot-infested zombie dissidents."  A religious commentator on the "Marty Clark Show" claims that the living dead are a gift from God, up until they unanimously vote against Bush.   Then they become threats that should "go back to hell."  On the surface, the tone is obvious and meant in good fun.

But Dante doesn't just work one angle.  There are moments of slyer, harder comedy, as when a grief-stricken mother is loudly cut off the air by Marty Clark, something all too real in modern punditry.   The scroll at the bottom of news footage includes stories about cloned dogs and missing babies, as though those deserve special attention while thousands die overseas.   And in one of the smartest, most incisive jabs, Merch discusses our commander-in-chief: "He's not stupid.  He has a way of making stupid people think they're just as smart as he is."

Even then, the episode twists in another direction in the second half, a direction that pertains directly to Merch's dead brother.   He was killed in Vietnam, and his presence becomes an unanswered question.  The earnest nature of this plotline resolves in a way that cuts through the overt parody like a bullet through dead flesh.   Merch's story comes into focus and gains the resonance needed to have the story stand up to multiple viewings.  I wonder if the framing device and narration were necessary, but nevermind: they're rarely intrusive, and they also allow the episode to start with some much-needed action.

Homecoming really goes for broke.  Some will argue that it's tactless, using a current tragedy as a basis for comedy.   Others will be put off by its unabashed liberal stance.  Still some might claim that its parody is too silly and obvious.   These people are all stupid.  Homecoming works as a cult project, a political attack, and a character drama.  It has guts, brains, and a heart.   It's the best piece of genre entertainment since Shaun of the Dead.

For more on this small miracle, check out David Dreher's "Dismembered Thoughts”

Checkout our review of Episode One: Don Coscarelli's  Incident On and Off a Mountain Road

Checkout our review of Episode Two: Stuart Gordon's H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House

Checkout our review of Episode Three: Tobe Hooper's Dance of the Dead

Checkout our review of Episode Four: Dario Argento's Jenifer

Checkout our review of Episode Five: Mick Garris's Chocolate