Let's Call This One "Football Fan"

I like Domino’s cheesy bread because it tastes good, not because it makes me a better person. 

Similarly, I enjoy crappy horror movies like Homecoming because I’m only an okay person.

Quick Plot: Mikey was the golden boy quarterback of his small Pennsylvania home town. Now a freshman with a full ride but bench duty at Northwestern, he returns home for the titular weekend where his jersey number will be retired in a glamorous school ceremony.

Naturally, Mikey brings his new-but-pretty-serious girlfriend Elizabeth to meet his family and loyal subjects. The only complication waiting for him is that Shelby, his high school sweetheart, never quite accepted the fact that their relationship ended when he went off to college and she stayed home to nurse her dying mother and run the family bowling alley.

As played by wide-eyed mannequin Mischa Barton, Shelby isn't quite right. She's run into deep financial problems but has been spending far more energy convincing herself that Mikey is still madly in love with her. Naturally, she's not thrilled to meet Elizabeth. Even more naturally, she's quite thrilled when she accidentally runs her new rival down on the side of an empty road, dragging the young woman back to her isolated house and "nursing" her back to health with all the medical skills of Annie Wilkes.

Guys, Homecoming isn't good, but by no means does that imply it's not enjoyable. Barton is way out of her league in playing a damaged obsessive. On one hand, it's clear that she's trying. On the other, there's just not enough there to have that effort produce anything. That in itself is weirdly entertaining.

Matching her skills is Mikey and everyone around him's complete idiocy. This is the kind of movie where a character realizes something terrible has happened, and rather than run into a packed room filled with everyone in town to say, "hey guys, can someone call the cops and someone else give me a ride because my girlfriend has been kidnapped by a madwoman," runs away from said room without a word and trudges several miles to the lair of a violent potential murderer with no neighbors or any other form of help. It's a thing of beauty it is.

Other such highlights:

-the fact that it takes two able-bodied people (one a star athlete) to defeat an ever wilting Mischa Barton

-the glorious way the camera turns a giant undercooked ham into some sort of magical power source, perhaps explaining the aforementioned point

-that the town's only police officer is played by Final Destination 2's police officer as if during the many near-death experiences, he also suffered multiple counts of brain damage

-that Shelby would hide her tokens of (maybe) murdering her sick mom in the toilet (which as Burlesque taught us, is the first place anyone should look when searching a home) and that said tokens include a page printed from the Internet with the title "Poisonous Plants" and that just in case you didn't see it, the words "Poisonous Plants" are circled

Yes folks, it's that kind of movie. And sometimes, that's a great thing.

High Points

Um. The ham sandwich?

Low Points

Aside from this just not being that good a movie, the treatment of time (as in, you're an 18 year old who's been in college for no more than three months, but seem to have met the girl you're going to marry) is a tad questionable

Lessons Learned

In small towns with no cell service, cops use their police cars for social activities like fishing

Getting your intended's parents to like you is a key element in the courting ritual

Women hate making bad impressions

Rent/Bury/Buy

Homecoming is streaming on Amazon Prime, which is probably the only way you should watch it. This isn't, you know, "good," but it's fun if you, like me, sometimes find yourself in a very particular mood for a crappy but not boring modern thriller. Don't give it money, but it just might be worth 90 minutes of time (especially if that time is co-opted on other matters like folding laundry or trimming your cat's claws).