2013 Horror Fest: Bloody Homecoming: 44 Out Of 100 Stars

Another awful movie, but at least this one was enjoyably awful.

Low budget, but made well enough for it not to be a distraction, Bloody Homecoming is the story of a boy who is killed by a fire when he's locked in a closet by a group of Freshman on Prom Night after he tries to rape one of them. 4 years later, again on prom night, someone is looking for revenge.

Your typical slash and chase film, Bloody Homecoming is elevated to watchable by a cadre of bad performances, including a principal who waddles about and believes constantly bellowing your lines is a serviceable acting technique. Then we have a dude who looks like Morton Downey shrunk down to 8th grade size, trying to play a high school senior, who has some of the best reaction shots I've ever seen.

The movies biggest flaw is actually a complete lack of extras. There are scenes, mainly the prom scene, where there are like, 10 other people in the room, all bunched together. There's a particularly chubby lass who is seen over and over again always standing with the same two other people. The cheerleaders, all 4 of them, gather near a tree to practice. The big football game, taking place prior to the prom, is heard, but not seen. That's OK though, because we're only introduced to one football player throughout the entire movie.

We're introduced to the football coach near the end of the movie who has a bizarre exchange with a teacher about the one time they had sex in which both actors play it like it's a crucial point of the story, when in fact it just happens out of nowhere and is never touched on again, just awesome. There's a great scene involving the principal and the father of the boy who died, who also happens to be the sheriff, in which I was sure at least one of the actors was going to pop a blood vessel.

Here's the thing, if you don't have the manpower to do it, why the fuck are you setting this thing in the middle of a prom? The killer and the kids all seem to exist in a vacuum of their own during the prom, nobody else pays attention to them, nobody suspects anything, the hallways are empty, there are like 3 teachers manning a table with one punch bowl. It's absolutely impossible to get invested in any of it.

The acting ranges from decent to awful, the gore and the kills are about in the same range. There's a scene of random nudity and a some sex, but nothing titillating. The twist at the end and the actual fight scenes are bad, but funny bad. The showdown between the students and the killer is played super serious, which makes it so very amusing.

So yeah, Bloody Homecoming tries, but everything about it is just too lacking to overcome the abundant silliness. Still, if silly sounds like fun, you could do worse.