Zombie come marching home

For those without Showtime, Masters of Horror is an anthology series that gives iconic horror directors a one-hour stab at no-holds barred nastiness. In theory, a perfect set-up in that, for most entries in the genre, one hour is about all a typical story needs before padding begins to bloat the project. Unfortunately, the first few entries directed by the likes of Stuart Gordon, John Landis and John Carpenter seemed to lack a certain cinematic je ne sais quoi …

… that is, until Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins) stepped up to the plate with the engagingly vitriolic zombie satire Homecoming, out this week on DVD. A contemporary riff on the calling up of the dead French soldiers segment of the 1938 anti-war classic J’accuse!, here Dante presents America on the eve of an undated presidential election, as the returning war dead return a bit more than anyone can comprehend, clawing their way from caskets snuck in through Dover Air Force Base to lurch their way toward the ballot boxes. A nation wonders: Are they back to show their support for the war? That they felt their sacrifice was warranted? And can someone please get them off of the street? They smell.

But of course they’re not happy about their lot. It sucks to be dead. But the president’s spin-doctors have a little something up their sleeves just in case the votes don’t go their way …

Granted, the premise of zombies-as-satire isn’t all that original, but Dante applies his satirical slant to the proceedings that was previously extemporized in the under-rated HBO movie The Second Civil War (also just out on DVD) to lampoon both sides of the Arlington fence.

It’s not completely perfect (or even near, if you’re a wannabe Red Stater). More than a few jabs fall flat in the face of parodying people who are already parodies of themselves (no matter how extreme you present an Ann Coulter knock-off, the real thing immediately out-freakys satire), and an unfocused subplot only serves as a lead-in to a mildly unsatisfactory resolution.

It’s pretty much a political cartoon with zombies, but horror (and especially the zombie subgenre) has always worked best when in full-on allegorical mode, and it’s refreshing to see someone willing to carry on that sharp-toothed tradition.