the leading man is my tpye

Strong and Moving!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Obviously old Mr Dante didn't like the Bush administration. He was offered a spot on the 'Masters of Horror' bandwagon and thought that a good place to vent his spleen. Probably not the best idea as there's virtually no horror to be found here.However, not being a fan of Bush's foreign policy myself (or the imbecilic Howard that followed him to war licking his boots) I quite enjoyed this slap in the face to his politics. The line about the president actually being smart because he 'pretends to be stupid so the stupid people can understand him' brought a smile.This is a film you'll either enjoy or loath. Its a statement of Dante's point of view and you'll either agree or disagree. Its not designed to be subtle. It was not a time for subtlety. This was made at the height of the war and statements needed to be made. If you can't make a statement using the creative medium of film then all hope is lost. I admire him for putting it out there. As a political statement I enjoyed it, as a horror piece not so much. There wasn't enough death or chills for my liking. I kept waiting for the zombies to give up on voting and just start tearing out some entrails. They're trained soldiers after all. They could have spent some more coin on the zombie appliances as well. These guys are supposed to have been killed in battle probably shredded by road side bombs etc. I didn't see many melted faces, removed limbs or internal organs missing. On the plus side there were some nice images, (the dessicated corpses rising from the flags), some humorous moments, solid acting by Tenney and a decent script.The highlight came at the end. I saw another review where the removal of the woman's brains from the shot to the back of the head was questioned. This is the best bit of the film. She had to die, simply for the fact she was an annoying harlot that needed to be punished.If your looking for horror stay away from this one. If you hate the war, check it out.

Joe Dante films Sam Hamm's loose adaptation of Dale Bailey's short story "Death & Sufferage" for this heavy handed highly politicised dismemberment of the Bush era that was perfectly timed but subsequently quickly dated and predestined to generate negative reviews across the board but none-the-less still worth viewing.Jon Tenney puts in a powerfully nuanced performance as the political pundit at the heart of the story with superb support from Thea Gill as a loathsome Ann Coulter clone, Wanda Cannon, Terry David Mulligan and long-term Dante collaborator Robert Picardo as the sleazy Karl Rove inspired puppet master.The master flexes the genre's long dormant satirical muscles in this brilliant homage to the likes of Jacque Tournier, George A. Romero and Jean Yarbrough (check the Arlington gravestones) that has a well-plotted back-story and an important message to be deliver without ever losing its deathly dark tongue-in-cheek sense of humour.At ease soldier.

Tolerable but only middling political satire (some time back I'd watched Dante's interesting THE SECOND CIVIL WAR [1997], also made for TV) which also manages to provide a twist on the typical zombie lore: American soldiers being killed in the current senseless war rise from the dead at the time of the oncoming elections to vote for a change (its late-night Italian TV screening on the eve of Barack Obama's long-awaited victory couldn't have been a coincidence)!! Its depiction of a person willing the dead back to life had been handled rather more stylishly in Bob Clark's DEATHDREAM (1974); Dante's film does have an effectively ironic revelation late in the game, but it's somewhat undone by the overbearing personality of the leading lady! As ever with Dante, in-jokes abound with respect to the names shown on the various gravestones: these obviously include such directors of zombie-related fare as John Gilling, Jacques Tourneur and G. A. Romero (the IMDb actually lists several others but I missed them somehow)!

The director of Gremlins, Piranha, The Howling and Small Soldiers, a favourite of mine when I was a kid, bring to us the sixth episode of Season One and the Vol. 8 of the R4 DVDs. Homecoming is a really good episode and it is not quite far of my personal favourites from Season One. This time during one hour Joe Dante shows his story in a political field (it is based on Dale Bailey's short story "Death and Suffrage"). Basically the protagonists work very hard in order to keep their president, of course these persons are no fools and they don't care about anything else so that's terrific for their work. These types of characters are very well known. The paranormal thing happens and it is fun to watch the reactions of the protagonists, the persons that must give some answers. For them is so simple, just like if the zombie soldiers doesn't do anything hat affect their campaign plans they will treat them as heroes, as citizens that have all the right to vote yet the truth is other so suddenly and obviously they want to kill the living dead. This time the horror has already happened, of course in the war and now anyone who still has something to say is in home again. Here we have the logic end with those types of protagonists and a complete squad of living dead product of the many wars.It is an entertaining episode but it is not a complete horror hour. If you ask me, there are at least four episodes of the ones I have seen of Season One better than this one but still Joe Dante has give us a good one. Oh and by the way I think it is the first episode that I have seen without female nudity.PS: "At the end when the zombie soldiers coming out of their graves the tombstones have the names of veterans of the horror and zombie genre, easy to read are: Jacques Tourneur, G.A. Romero ( George A. Romero), Jean Yarbrough and Delbert Tenney ( 'Del Tenney (I)'), harder to read are: Lucio Fulci, Victor Halperin and Gordon Douglas. The (readable) graves have this order: Romero and Tenney in the first line, behind them Fulci and Halperin and in the last line behind Fulci is Tourneur, who is in the middle of Douglas and Yarbrough". That's from the trivia of this site. Definitely I have to watch that detail!