Homecoming is a thriller focused on a teen audience with its indie rock soundtrack, recognizable young stars, and the fact it feels like it could have been made by MTV. It's a wholly unremarkable effort and doesn't bring anything new to the table plot-wise but I still found it to be a pretty watchable and competently made time that knows what it wants to be, succeeds doing so, and doesn't strive to be much more than that. It's the type of movie a hardcore horror fan wouldn't be caught dead seeing but offers a pleasant enough diversion for those who enjoy "female psycho" films like Fatal Attraction and (more suitably) the recent Beyonce vehicle, Obsessed.

It's looking to be quite the weekend in the small town of Mount Bliss as local high school football hero Mike (Matt Long) is due to visit from College as part of the homecoming weekend where he'll be honoured. Along for the ride is his girlfriend Elizabeth (Jessica Stroup) which doesn't sit too well with his ex Shelby (Mischa Barton) who's still under the impression they're together - and a bit obsessive to boot.

After a drunken evening at the bowling alley Shelby owns, Elizabeth finds herself befriended by Mike's former flame and thinks she's a pretty alright girl. But the evening is about to turn sour as she's unable to find a hotel to stay in and a walk along the dark road leads to her being accidentally hit by Shelby in her truck.

It's here that the script by Katie Fetting, Jack Goldberger, and Frank Hannah goes all Misery-lite as Shelby squirrels the injured Elizabeth off to her farmhouse (which, in a bland sub-plot, she might lose to the bank) in order to "take care" of her. This means nursing her injury, going off the deep end more than once and, in the biggest case of borrowing plot elements from Rob Reiner's Stephen King adaptation, causing more injury to make sure her victim can't get away while she tries to woo Mike back into her life.

The remainder of the film consists of many moments of cat & mouse between our two female leads, scenes of Mike trying to figure out if Elizabeth just went back home because she was nervous of meeting his folks or something else happened, and a finale where there's some watered-down violence and a tacked-on final shot that's not only predictable as Hell (not that the entire movie isn't) but also pretty frigging lame.

As directed by Morgan J. Freeman (American Psycho 2), Homecoming plays out briskly and hits all it's notes fine. He doesn't really seem to have much more ambition than cashing a paycheck for delivering what's essentially an R-rated "Made-for-TV" thriller starring "That girl from 'The O.C.'".

Thankfully, the cast seems to be into their roles with Stroup (from television's revived "90210") playing the victim well enough, Long spending much of the film with a concerned look plastered on his pretty little face, and Barton giving it her all in trying to be bat shit crazy. While I did find Barton's performance to be pretty enjoyable, I still felt like she could have maybe given Shelby a bit more of an edge and taken her psychosis an extra mile - which I almost feel funny writing since she was placed under psychiatric care at approximately the same time this movie was making its debut in theatres.

As I said above, if you're a tried and true horror fan there's going to be nothing for you within Homecoming. However, if you're a young, impressionable girl (do they even read this site? I doubt it), a fan of CW's line-up of shows, and meekly dipping your toe into the genre then there's worse choices out there. I myself wasn't blown away but I can't say I was ever bored with this either. (Chris Hartley, 7/31/09)

Directed By: Morgan J. Freeman.
Written By: Katie Fetting, Jake Goldberger, Frank Hannah.

Starring: Mischa Barton, Matt Long, Jessica Stroup, Michael Landes.