Homecoming

source: Homecoming

You've seen this premise a million times. Crazy Firl or Crazy Guy wants someone, they are obsessed, someone else is in the way. So if someone else is in the way what should they do?! That's where the fun and craziness begins. I personally love this movie because Mischa Barton is a very under rated actress. She plays crazy really really well. Btw this was a lifetime movie ... for whatever reason it is hard to find now. If you find it, watch it.

I'm hesitant to give this a 6, but I'll let it roll anyways. This is a typical slasher/hostage film with a psycho ex-girlfriend. Mostly everything is predictable. The most annoying part is how laxed the brother of the main character is, considering he's a cop. The main character's girlfriend is missing for half the movie and the cop doesn't want to open an investigation because: "chill bro, I'm sure she's out there". Like another review I read somewhere here, the "heroes" of this film truly are clueless. Wasn't a horrible film, wasn't great either. I'd check it out if you're bored.

Look let's be honest, this movie is nothing special. It's at best an alright misery rip off and at worse a brundlefly of better movies. However, I honestly can't hate it. Like okay it's not my favourite movie by a long shot (though I'd be lying if I said I really like Jessica Stroup in anything.......except prom night and iron fist but more on those later) but it's at least acknowledging of how derivative it is. Mischa Barton is ridiculous but still kinda creepy, the boyfriend is pretty likeable if a bit too naive at times, there's some moments in it that make me genuinely flinch every time I see them (that ankle break is pretty brutal). So yeah, it's shameless in deriding from better movies but come on, you knew that going in. It's cliched, silly and at a few points just plain weird, but if you can switch your brain off for a bit, it's not bad.

It starts out quite good, while I'm still trying to stay gullible, asking myself where all this may lead... But soon, the makers of the film must have thought: 'Let's go with some stale old clichés, improbabilities and stupid actions.' I understand it's not easy to try and come up with something original, but this was rather poorly done. On the other hand, I have to admit I don't always mind a simple, predictable thriller. More so if there are some pleasant leading ladies appearing in it. To call this a good film and rate it positive, is yet another thing... 5 out of 10.

I turned it off immediately. The acting was very weak, the story is very boring, you don't have to look at it. 1/10 *

I tried so hard to like this film because it was on netflix and they don't get very good movies on there. The plot was obviously derivative which I can forgive because most modern films usually are. The acting was of a reasonably good standard for a low budget film but the dialog was abysmal and the plot followed such a standard trajectory that each scene became more obvious than the last. Where I gave up was in the bathroom scene, A woman who you know is going to try to kill you, and you just give her a knock on the head. Love B movies and indie flicks but this was poor! I know when I think a film is bad when I give it the 5 minute test i.e. I will give it another 5 minutes then it's off. It lasted 50 minutes but only just!

I had already noted a low rating for this movie on various sites but the subject matter appealed to me as a fan of Misery, Play Misty for Me, Misery et al so I gave it a go expecting nothing of any shock value and was not disappointed on that front. This film had elements of all three of the aforementioned films but had too few pearls stretched out on a decidedly threadbare string. Almost immediately the viewer becomes frustrated at the stupidity of Mike and his girlfriend Elizabeth as they take a trip back to his roots where his "intense" - as Mike describes her - ex-girlfriend, Shelby, runs a bowling alley. After meeting some of Mike's friends, Elizabeth decides she wants to follow them on with Mike to the Bowling alley in spite of being informed about the existence of Shelby. After Shelby plies Elizabeth with tequila whilst playing the amiable ex, Elizabeth, keen to make a good first impression on Mike's parents decides she is too drunk to meet with them that night so Mike's police officer brother drives Elizabeth to a remote hotel and Mike back to his folks. This is where the first major flaw of the plot is seen. Would you seriously drop your young girlfriend off in a hotel car park in a strange and remote area without seeing her safely inside and ensuring she has secured a room? Apparently not as she is left to wheel her case in and wave from the door as her chaperones speed off into the night before being told there are in fact no vacancies and the sign that says otherwise is broken. This leaves Elizabeth to walk four miles West in the dark to locate another hotel until she flags down a passing car which promptly knocks her into a ditch. When she awakens, Elizabeth finds herself in a strange bedroom attached to a drip and being "nursed" by Shelby who is intent on hiding the injured girlfriend away whilst she desperately tries to win back the affections of her ex, Mike. It quickly becomes evident that Shelby is a dangerous psychopath and one wonders why the smart Elizabeth didn't just play along with her games and manipulate Shelby by asserting that she wanted to break up with Mike. A girl of her calibre could have easily cooked up some fictitious and feasible story which would have placated Shelby and ensured Elizabeth's relative safety. This is a common flaw in movies of this ilk. The hostage making ill-planned escape attempts, showing the fear that only feeds the hostage-taker or to the contrary, antagonising their captors and sustaining more injuries for their efforts. The characters were hard to care about in any capacity which is so often the case where teenagers are involved. Predicable diatribe in my opinion, lacking every ounce of substance that Misery brought to the screen.

When they arrive at his home town for a big celebration, a man's girlfriend is captured by his psychotic ex and tortured for stealing him away from her while he and his friends race to save her before it's too late. This one here is a rather curious thriller rather than an out-and-out horror effort. One of the main issues with this one is the really bland pacing, which has the abduction placed oddly later in the film than it should because it deals with the useless extraneous moments in the film where she's dealing with outside issues that have nothing to do with the main torture scenes. The majority of the scenes consist of either her attempting to get away only to be stopped without any kind of true punishment offered only to repeat the process again or his friends telling him to get on with his life, and it manages to plod along lifelessly instead of generating any interest. Rather than doing any kind of physical, damaging torture, it features only knock-outs or drugging and carries on in a series of lame parts that give off a thriller feel more than a true horror film, and the painful, agonizing moments of her trying to win him back or pining over a rejection don't help this one much. The finale does have some pretty decent moments, including the clever discovery of the kidnapping, some brutal confrontations down in the basement and a rousing conclusion, but it's all too claustrophobic and confining to really get where it could've gone. This is just too flawed and has too little right about it to really be of any importance. Rated R: Language and Violence.