"Masters of Horror" Homecoming (2005)

Director:

Joe Dante

Writers:

Mick Garris (creator)
Sam Hamm (teleplay)

TV Series:

"Masters of Horror" (2005)

Original Air Date:

2 December 2005 (Season 1, Episode 6)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

A publicity official for the U.S. Army finds that he might have to be working a lot more than he imagined, when the deceased soldiers of the war come back to life, looking for a few good men.

Plot Keywords:

Soldier | Election | Masters Of Horror | Zombie | Satire

Cast

Jon Tenney	...	David Murch
Thea Gill	...	Jane Cleaver
Wanda Cannon	...	Kathy Hobart
Terry David Mulligan	...	Marty Clark
Robert Picardo	...	Kurt Rand
Beverley Breuer	...	Janet Hofstadter
Dexter Bell	...	Marine Guard #1
Jason Diablo	...	Marine Guard #2
Karen Austin	...	Mom
Daniel Wesley	...	Bobby Earl Beeler
Penelope Corrin	...	Registrar
J. Winston Carroll	...	Rev. Clayton Poole (as J.W. Carroll)
Nathaniel DeVeaux	...	Mr. Baker
Candus Churchill	...	Mrs. Baker
Jason Emanuel	...	Michael

Runtime:

58 min

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:TV-MA | Italy:VM14 | UK:15 | Germany:16 | USA:Not Rated (DVD) | Finland:K-15 (TV rating) (self applied) (2008) | Finland:K-18 (DVD) (self applied) (2007) | Argentina:16

Company:

IDT Entertainment

Trivia:

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.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Philip Murch's tombstone lists his rank as Lance Corporal. When he returns from the dead, he showing wearing an Army uniform. Lance Corporal is strictly a rank in the Marine Corps.

Movie Connections:

References Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Thoughtful? Thought provoking? No. Trite and annoying.

I disagree 100% with the reviewer who disagreed 100% with the reviewer who gave this short movie an "F" grade. Cashing in heavily on political propaganda only obscures Joe Dante's lack of ability to pull another Howling out of his bag of tricks. The Masters of Horror series was a phenomenal collection of truly horrifying tales, save for this episode.

Despite gaining acclaim from those who wish to promote it's political slant, "Homecoming" is the least effective episode of MOH season one. Unlike the rest of the series, Dante's entry is a parody of the genre, falling short of both horror and humor in it's ham-fisted delivery of a hackneyed political point.

Dante can really only be blamed for pulling this stinker off the shelf, as it wasn't his creation. The zombie sub-genre is very popular this decade, and among the crop of predictable George Romero tributes and vacuous fantasies are a number of works designed to push political or (ir)religeous messages. Such works are not written by or intended for true horror fans. Maybe Dante really isn't a a Master of Horror, either. What has he been up to since The Howling, after all?

If you want a lame anti-war zombie flick with a few pop culture references passed off as humor, Homecoming may be just your thing. If you are a horror fan looking for something Masterful, pick up... most any other episode of the series. My personal favorite was Dario Argento's "Jenifer," based loosely on a classic comic short by the team of Bruce Jones and Berni Wrightson -- truly creepy.