When he was just a boy, Jonathan (Derrik Wynn) witnessed his mother being raped by her abusive boyfriend on Halloween night (which also happened to be Jonathan’s birthday… bummer), so he stabbed them both to death. Ten years later, he’s released from a mental hospital into the care of his aunt and her family. Has the painfully shy Jonathan truly been reformed, or is he merely biding his time until his next massacre?
Homecoming Massacre is a solid low budget effort that gets high marks for the better than average acting. No one is going to be mistaken for Olivier here, but the performances are all better than the audience would expect (or even better than the movie probably deserves). It’s almost a shame the paltry budget lets the cast down (especially near the end). While writer/director Kenny White (who also wrote the decent Curse of the Snake Woman) gets a lot of mileage from the shoestring budget (it’s mostly a two-location film), the seams start to show as the flick approaches its climax. The worst thing I can say for it is that some of the blue-tinted day for night scenes are hard to see.
Strangely enough, I liked the early scenes of the psycho kid trying (and ultimately failing) to reconnect with his family than I did the slasher-centric scenes in the second half. In many ways, Homecoming Massacre is sort of a precursor to Halloween Ends as the film examines the repercussions of violence and how many are often doomed to repeat the cycle no matter what kind of interventions are tried. The killer’s costume, which is a simple, but effective clown works too. Sure, some of the kills are weak, but White delivers at least one memorable chainsaw death.
Overall, Homecoming Massacre is a solid effort. I just hope next time out, White has a budget befitting his vision. Hopefully, he’ll keep the same stock of actors, as they were all believable and helped keep the movie afloat throughout most of the running time.
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