Homecoming

MOVIE #1,899 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 08.17.24 Dante made two short features for the much better known Showtime series Masters of Horrors (some of the other directors included John Carpenter, Dario Argento, Tobe Hooper, just to name a few). In some ways this is the perfect medium for Dante, born out of the school of his mentor Roger Corman: fast, cheap and short. Homecoming is a zombie movie with a staunchly anti-war (and anti-George W. Bush) message. Iraq War casualties turn into the undead when their caskets come back to America, hellbent on one mission: voting that bastard out of the White House. It’s good to see, sometimes, that the hellscape of politics and the evils of MSM aren't some new inventions…

But through the lens of 2024, it’s difficult to relate to the “Vote Blue No Matter Who!” message inherent in this film — my cynicism simply takes over. When they slap an “I Voted” sticker on a finally-dead zombie, it certainly registers as comedy/satire but I’m not entirely sure what the point is. So, tonally, this is a hot mess, especially when it aims for the heartstrings, seemingly without a hint of irony — or is there? See for yourself…


I think Dante's choice to play it so straight in the 'heartwarming zombie moments' is ultimately a good one, but it's still jarring.

This takes an increasingly wacky turn every ten minutes. In the scheme of things, I appreciate what it's trying to do, and it has its moments (both good and bad and sometimes so bad it's good), but yeah this is a lot…


The last few seconds sum up the film’s mission statement as best it can. It's somehow both painfully obvious and horribly muddled…


Still, I appreciated this effort. That this came out when it did — less than two years into the war — shows Dante at his most overtly left-leaning and radical.

---

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,898 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,900 ⫸

---

"Homecoming" is the sixth episode of the first season of Masters of Horror. It is loosely based on the 2002 short story "Death & Suffrage" by Dale Bailey. It was released on December 2, 2005.