The legendary Joe Dante takes on zombies in Homecoming, his entry in the Masters of Horror anthology. Overall he acquits himself well. It looks nice, the acting is solid and everything moves along at a nice clip. The story covers a group of zombie soldiers that return from the grave to express their opinion on the unpopular war that killed them (hint: they aren’t too fond of it). As well execuuted as this was overall, I really felt that it got bogged down by its politics. It’s so heavy handed in its approach to its message that it distracts from the experience of watching it, even if you more or less agree with its position (although some parts of it work precisely because they are so blatantly taking aim at some political hack, such as the scene where the Ann Coulter-esque character takes a bullet to the head — that worked great for me). I watched it for the first time recently and I wonder if I would have liked it more if I’d seen it right after it came out in 2005. I’ll watch it again in five years and see if I feel the same way – this one may actually be easier to swallow when what it is commenting on isn’t in that weird, not-so-fresh gray area between current events and history. After all, the idea of soldiers returning from the grave to express displeasure with the way they were used is an essentially timeless idea.
Heavy: Homecoming
On March - 4 - 2009
