Movie Review - Masters of Horror: Homecoming

Universal Remote

On Friday night, Showtime aired Homecoming, a psuedo-zombie movie that was basically a critique of the Bush war in Iraq and the politicization and exploitation of the war by conservative commentators.

I won't get too much into the plot because we've been living much of it. Short version: a conservative speech writer states on "Larry King" that if he had one wish it would be for those who have given their life in Iraq to come back and tell us how important their sacrifice was and what a good cause it was for. After the President uses this line at his party's convention, dead soldiers (only those that didn't believe they died for a just cause) rise from their graves with one solitary purpose, to vote. The movie tracks the conservative attempt to exploit these soldiers for political purposes, and then, when they realize that they oppose their party and the war, to intern the zombie soldiers and prevent them from telling their story. In doing so, the movie-conservatives parrot many of the things that have been said about all those who oppose them and many of the things used to sell the war.

In the end, the movie isn't very scary. In fact, it is a completely ineffective "horror movie." But one thing struck me as fascinating. As the first movie to address the War in Iraq, it offered something that needed to be done, but just hasn't yet. Because of the format, a one-hour short, they condensed all of the arguments that conservatives have used to support the war and attack their opponents into one neat little hour-long package. As such, all of the illogical contradictions and all of the pure hate were on display in one place. Even as somebody who has been paying attention and knows about all of this, I found this simple act to be very effective in exposing the simple-minded hate and the purely political nature of how the war was, and continues to be, sold. It simply reinforced my belief that the most effective opposition starts with somebody putting all of the facts together in one place, from the criticisms from Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill, to the statements about WMDs by Cheney, Rice and the President. Taken individually, it is easy to dismiss each of these pieces of evidence. But gathered together in one place, the truth is undeniable.