Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

liam_donnaz Watching this movie, I was reminded of why I love these kinds of movies. They are simple, effective, and most of all, good. And that is what this movie is: Good. Comparisons to Fatal Attraction and Misery can be drawn, but this is its own movie, and that is its brilliance.First off, the story isn't anything new, but it works in the films favor. Basically, guy meets girl, guy dates girl, guy brings girl home to his town for his football jersey retirement, guys psycho ex kidnaps girl, and that's about it. It's simple and dated, but still fun to watch. The reason why I like this film so much, however, is because often times, it feels real. I don't mind violence and gore in movies. I can watch the goriest films ever made and still sleep like a baby. Where Homecoming is different is that its gore and violence is spaced out and simple: rather than excessive blood shed, it tones it down, and when it does occur, it is some of the few moments committed to celluloid that can make me cringe, and that is saying something.the other aspect of the film that makes it work so well is the acting. I'm not Mischa Barton's biggest fan, but she was genuinely creepy and quite gives an unnerving performance. Matt Long makes for a great oblivious boyfriend, and he plays the character well, occasionally adding a light attitude to otherwise quiet scenes of dialog. However, the best performance in the film is Jessica Stroup. Her character is well played, sympathetic, and, most importantly, believable. It also helps that she is quite beautiful, adding a sense of innocence to the character that would have otherwise been absent.The film is not without flaws, but then again, so is every other movie. Despite comparisons that can be made between Homecoming and others, it is well crafted, the performances are well played and the violence is spaced out enough and realistic enough to make even the most conditioned of gore hounds cringe. It is a fine example of a modern thriller, and deserves more praise than it gets.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Things aren't all that blissful in the little working and blue collar town of Mt. Bliss when the high school star football running back Matt Long, Mike Donaldson, came back for his long awaited homecoming to have his football jersey #7 permanently retired. Expecting to renew her relationship with the handsome & hulking Matt is his old high school flame Shelby Mercer, Micha Barton, who's in for the surprise of her life in finding that Matt is in love and planning to marry Elizabeth,or Liz, Mitchum, Jessica Stroup! Gtting good and drunk at the homecoming festivities Liz decides to chill out at a local motel before she meets Matt's parents. This decision on her part was to change both her and Shelby's lives forever!On the highway looking for a place to stay for the night Liz is run down by a very disturbed and not watching the road Shelby who realizing her good fortune takes the very banged up Liz home to recuperate! What Shelby really has in mind is to somehow make Liz disappear, by poisoning her, and thus end up having Matt all to herself! The only problem is that Liz is not all that accommodating to Shelby's plans and does everything to escape! Which ends up with Shelby doing her best to off Liz even before the poison,that she's spiking her her medication with, kicks in!With Selby now in control of the situation she plans to trick Matt into thinking that Liz walked out on him but he doesn't fall for her act until he gets positive proof that Liz in fact two timed him. From that point on Shalby starts to lose it in overplaying her hand like getting Matt drunk and try to have it on with him, in a bar ladies room no less, that has him suspect that she in fact had something to do with Liz's sudden disappearance!***SPOILERS*** The film comes down to the big homecoming party where Matt finally realized in a present that Liz gave him, that he thought was Shelby's, that has him bolting in sub-zero weather with nothing but his shirt & tie on to Shelby's place and find out what in fact she did to Liz and if Liz is being kept there against her will. Shelby by now has completely gone off her rocker murdering Matt and her friend Sheriff Billy Fletcher, Michael Landes, for asking too many embarrassing questions and trying to fix the light in her basement where a tied up Liz is being held.Tremendous end of movie cat fight between the badly injured Liz and the crazed and homicidal Shelby as a kneecapped Matt, whom Shelby shot, is helpless to stop and is just a bystander in the whole spectacular event!***MAJOR SPOILER*** typical psycho movie ending that you saw coming from as far as 10 miles away that doesn't surprise you but at the same time take anything away about the what you've seen in the film up until then!

terry_betts We've seen it all before nicely sums up "Homecoming." Plot, characters, twists and turns (Such as they are) are all strictly out of the stock Hollywood thriller handbook.The stock plot revolves around small town football star Michael (Matt Long) coming home to see his High School jersey retired with new girlfriend Elizabeth (A very cute Jessica Stroup) in tow ostensibly so she can get to know his old friends and meet his parents. Unfortunately for Mike and especially unfortunate for Elizabeth, Mike's old flame from his high school days, Shelby (Mischa Barton) is still in town and still believes he carries a torch for her as she so obviously does for him. When she discovers her old love has a new lover and is no longer interested in her she's devastated.Shortly Elizabeth falls into Shelby's clutches and becomes her prisoner as Shelby hatches a plot to make her rival miserable while trying to win back her old boyfriend.Virtually every cliché in the "desperate to escape" victim playbook is used and most are presented only half-heartedly at best. Eventually all the players come together for the clichéd ending and anyone who's surprised by how it all plays out has never seen a modern Hollywood thriller or has an IQ lower than Forrest Gump himself.There are plot holes galore and the story requires otherwise intelligent characters to act stupid or at least do stupid things no one in such real life situations ever would. Elizabeth is presented with several obvious methods of escape or at least chances to alert other people to her predicament but passes up the most fundamental means at her disposal simply so the writers can extent her pain and suffering and make the movie last the requisite hour and half viewing time. (One obvious case is when a loan officer comes to visit Shelby at her house and when he leaves a supposedly desperate Elizabeth can only meekly tap at the window to try and gain his attention when she has over a dozen devices around her in the room she could easily use to smash the glass and alert him to her presence.) Certain plot points never add up and simply become distractions as the movie plods along. Although Elizabeth is supposed to be the love of Mike's life he and his policeman cousin Billy (Michael Landes) accept Elizabeth's disappearance fairly casually. At first Mike acts extremely upset at her apparent last minute ditching of him on the eve of her finally meeting his parents, yet never goes beyond a few vain attempts to call her for an explanation. Mike's parents never seem to upset at possibly never meeting the woman that might be their future daughter in-law and no one else in town ever seems to ask Mike about his girlfriend's absence.Elizabeth discovers evidence Shelby poisoned her mother yet Shelby's motives for doing so are never explained. She seems to have only inherited a tremendous amount of debt from her mother's death as both the business and house she left behind are near foreclosure. At one point while trying to affect an escape, Elizabeth smashes Shelby in the face with a porcelain toilet tank lid only to have Shelby quickly cover up the damage in the next scene with a light touch of make up. No one even asks her about her head injury throughout the rest of the movie! And why a character so obviously demented as Shelby went unnoticed all her life in such a closed, rural small town, especially by her long time boyfriend, is beyond explanation.The biggest plot hole of all is why Shelby keeps her rival alive at all especially when her homicidal tendencies become evident half-way through the film.I could go on but you get the idea.Mischa Barton, for all her off screen real life escapades, is turning in to a very competent actress. She's really the only reason to sit through this thing to the bitter, hackneyed end. She's obviously about 4 points better looking than anyone else in the film and another plot hole is why anyone so attractive would have such a hard time finding a decent replacement for an old high school boyfriend in the first place.If you really want to see a good, tightly scripted thriller about an innocent victim held prisoner by a psychopath rent the much better "Misery." You'll get Kathy Bates instead of the fetching Mischa Barton but you won't regret the time you spent watching it either.

gavin6942 IMDb plot says: A jilted ex-girlfriend has a plan in store for her former beau, who is coming back to his small town with a new lover. Gavin says: This is true, if we say he's coming back for one weekend and that her plan is only developed on accident, not ahead of time.I had a difficult time with "Homecoming". The film is not anything particularly new. Many have compared it to "Misery", and you can see a connection in just about any kidnapping film. So, if you're looking for a whole new plot, you won't find it. You will probably just end up wondering why the kidnapper (Shelby) doesn't kill the girlfriend right away. I mean, if she wants to get back with her ex, it doesn't really help to have his current love tied up in the bedroom. But the difficult time for me wasn't because it was bad -- in fact, the suspense was so well crafted, I kept myself up well past a sensible bed time to catch the end.Mischa Barton does a fine job as Shelby. Her personal problems aside, Barton is a decent actress. Most people probably know her from "The OC", but since I never saw that show, I know her from a little film called "Walled In" (which, I suppose, was not as good as "Homecoming"). The other actors are also good, but I've already forgotten their names.Director Morgan J. Freeman (no relation) has an interesting vision. The film is bland in its cinematography, its angles, its use of music, its pace... there's really nothing exciting here. There's the suspense, as I said, and a little bit of gore. But the film doesn't shine as bright as Freeman's "American Psycho 2" (which I loved, I don't care what you say). For the first twenty or so minutes, I thought my boss had sent me a drama to review, and I was somewhat bitter about it.But yes, the film is decent, and better than many of the films you'll find on the video shelf. I think two other films I caught recently, "Nature's Grave" and "Sick Girl", would be better choices for the horror fans, but if you want a light thriller, this might meet your needs. By no means will it go down as a classic or even all that memorable, but it's worth a view.