🏚️ 1. Premise: Small Town, Digging Up Regrets & Corpses
“Homecoming” opens with Jim Owens (Michael McKean) returning to his sleepy hometown of Hollis for the fiftieth anniversary of the famous Hollis High massacre—a fatal fire that killed six students. Cue ominous crows, sticky heat haze, and townsfolk who look like they just stepped off a washed-out Hallmark card. Jim’s here to reconnect with old friends, bury the past… and apparently exhume the past by a mile when the dearly departed rise from their graves. This isn’t just a reunion—it’s a necro-reunion, complete with screaming, collapsing roofs, and mom’s burnt key lime pie.
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🔪 2. Tone Tune‑Out: Dante Under Drag
Joe Dante’s best work zigs with charm and dark comedy—Gremlins had wit. The Howling had bite. Homecoming has none of that. Instead, Dante delivers limp scares and chuckles that land like rubber chickens with no spring. The tension, which should rip your gut, instead hangs like humidity in a Florida summer—sticky, slow, and utterly unfunny. Dante seems bored, like a football coach who showed up to a fencing match by mistake.
📜 3. Characters: Caricatures at the Chili Cook‑Off
Jim is the burned-out protagonist returning home to face his past. His high school sweetheart, Mary (Laurie Holden), is amusingly sweet until the script remembers it needs her in the “cheerful survivor” slot. There’s also the town sheriff who looks like he moonlights as a substitute teacher, and the mayor who’s one bad slogan away from inserting a shovel into the town seal. No one gets depth, charisma, or even one solid zinger. These are characters you ignore until you realize they’re the only puzzle pieces left in a plot without edges.
🧟 Zombies: Back from the Dead But Stuck in Traffic
The burning heart of the piece—resurrected high schoolers—should be terrifying. Instead, they’re tired. Their makeup is more beige than Gothic. They shuffle like they’ve just had a latte, not an unfortunate encounter with a crematorium. There’s a garbage‑truck chase, a halfhearted scream, and a ghoul at the buffet table that could’ve been threatening if it wasn’t chewing grilled cheese like a deranged dairy mascot. Dante misses the chance for satirical symbolism—maybe an undead football quarterback symbolizing toxic nostalgia—but nope: these zombies are as stale as central casting leftovers.
🍻 5. Writing: Small‑Talk with Gore Splatter
The script, penned by David S. Goyer and Jim Uhls, can’t seem to scandalize or surprise. They toss in a subplot involving the doomed high school project: a MacGuffin statue that the town celebrated as a symbol of “progress,” now central to the resurrection magic. It’s a stale symbol with zero resonance. The dialogue alternates between monosyllabic pleasantries and grunting reactions to rotting limbs. No tersely delivered cynicism, no bites—just padding that tries to hide the missing emotional arc under decades-old town gossip.
💡 Horror Basics: Misfiring on All Warnings
Scares should land like punches. These don’t—more like light taps from a deflated pillow. The big fiery throwback reveal of the original fire is more “meh” than chilling. The new blaze, which should escalate to infernal levels, fizzles like barbecue coals after the lid is closed. Dante’s attempt to evoke hometown dread feels more like he aimed for suburban sitcom and got stuck on daytime TV.
🪦 6. Nostalgia Fatigue: Hometown Rules Don’t Apply
Dante and the writers clearly intended to explore the nostalgia trap—returning to the past and realizing it’s a rotting graveyard. Great concept. But it’s never smart, never feels earned. Instead we get the supporting cast squealing about old glory days while we wonder if their funeral for emotional stakes is scheduled before the closing credits. The only thing we feel nostalgic for is ANYONE else’s idea of horror on Masters of Horror. Those episodes were more ambitious than this.
🚧 7. The Climax: Shoved Into the Catastrophic Exit
In the final act, the townspeople gather at the high school cafeteria for what feels like a potluck dinner interrupted by cremated classmates. Jim sets fire to the homicidal statue to stop the blood magic. Cue modest explosion, confused screams, and a mix of undead cheerleaders stumbled through collapsing rafters. The visual effects are cheap, the stakes underwhelming, and the resolution cleaner than the setup. Spoiler: nobody learns anything, but the camera gets to move while the soundtrack hums victory right in your ear.
🎙️ 8. Dark Humor Malfunctions
Bad comedy makes jokes sound like they’re hemming in a retirement home. Trying to darkly joke about high school horror? Fine. But when your main gag is “hey remember the homecoming barbecue?” while zombies gut the grill chef, you’ve lost focus. Dante misses the opportunity to skewers small-town myths—with undead mascots ravaging concession stands and town newspaper banners screaming “WELCOME BACK ALIVE!” It instead recommits to the “young people dying awkwardly” formula without any overheated commentary or smart satire.
🔍 9. The Heart: A Deflating Miss
Dante’s older, no question. But his edge? Left behind with the old script drafts. By the end, you realize there’s no emotional weight behind Jim’s return. His mom, his ex, his high school hell—but none of it lands. We don’t feel grief, horror, loss. Instead, we watch reheated sentiment parade past a burnt-out paint job and call it art. Dante trades emotional resonance for bland credentialism: “Look, pee-wee horrors in your home turf!”
🧹 10. Final Verdict: A Misplaced Reunion Royale
Homecoming isn’t the worst Masters of Horror episode—there were more embarrassments in that anthology—but it’s the one that should’ve walked off stage before the director even yelled “action.” It’s dull, hollow, and messes around with its own nostalgia like a bored teenager rifling through dusty scrapbooks. Dante phoned it in, the cast looks hesitant, and the script forgot to build an emotional funeral pyre.
⭐ Final Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5 high school yearbooks smoking in ash trays)
There’s a corpse at every doorstep—but nobody left a smashed TV remote to show horror fatigue like this.
