Sexylocher
Masterful Movie
Taraparain
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
Senteur
As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.
Sameer Callahan
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
husker666
I tried so hard to like this film because it was on netflix and they don't get very good movies on there. The plot was obviously derivative which I can forgive because most modern films usually are. The acting was of a reasonably good standard for a low budget film but the dialog was abysmal and the plot followed such a standard trajectory that each scene became more obvious than the last. Where I gave up was in the bathroom scene, A woman who you know is going to try to kill you, and you just give her a knock on the head. Love B movies and indie flicks but this was poor! I know when I think a film is bad when I give it the 5 minute test i.e. I will give it another 5 minutes then it's off. It lasted 50 minutes but only just!
Robert J. Maxwell
I have to say that I didn't sit all the way through this pastiche of other horror/suspense/drama movies. It borrowed from so many sources -- afternoon soap operas to "Fatal Attraction" -- that I think it did something to my brain. Even now, an hour after I shut it off, it still feels as if there's some kind of insect buzzing around inside my skull. A moth. No, it's too substantial and spasmodic in its behavior for that -- a grasshopper. There it goes again.Mischa Barton, under the conviction that she and her boyfriend away at college, are still hooked up, is shaken when Matt Lott brings home the beautiful young sensitive Jessica Stroup.Barton wangles things -- I won't bother to explain how -- so that Stroup gets drunk and is stranded on a deserted highway in the middle of the night. Barton accidentally strikes the lone figure with her car, brings her home, and keeps her in bed, all wrapped in bandages and sedated with an IV drip and vials of potions -- "just things left over from when my mother was sick." Now, I'd been looking forward to some amusing bitchy exchanges and skullduggery but the realization that I was watching a very bad imitation of Stephen King's "Misery" was a downer. I think that any normal person watching Mischa Barton applying some torque to Stroup's broken ankle and hearing the patient screech with pain would immediately long for Kathy Bates with her winning smile and sledgehammer.I don't know. Watch it if you want. I think you'll be disappointed at this jury rigged drama but you might enjoy it. You aren't likely to be repelled by the acting. None of it is particularly wrong, though the men are nonentities. Mischa Barton has a sensuous and slightly sadistic look built into her features. It's hard to believe this is the same radiant post-adolescent who appeared in, what was it, "Pups"? And Jessica Stroup, beyond being alluring in her own right, projects the just the kind of blind trust the part calls for.
Scarecrow-88
Shelby didn't accept a break up with high school football star Mike who has since moved on to college at Northwestern and attached himself to another, Elizabeth. She can not and will not believe Mike is no longer the man for her, and in pure FATAL ATTRACTION/PLAY MISTY FOR ME style, goes off the deep end. Shelby will set out to wreck Mike's relationship with Elizabeth whatever the cost. Mischa Barton has this moment where she quietly fumes and dwells on Mike's truly leaving her in the dust...dragging off a cigarette, the contemplation of losing him yet again is present on her face(it's a good scene I give Barton credit for). Driving home while sobbing, Shelby hits Liz with her vehicle as she was walking the side of the road seeking help from someone because she needed a ride to Mike's mom's house..Shelby got Liz liquored up so she couldn't meet Mike's mom. Echoes of MISERY as Shelby has Liz in a bed where her sick mother once spent her last years dying, feeding her intravenous tube with a sleeping agent to keep her either sedated or so weakened she can not move(not to mention Liz' ankle is badly damaged)..and when she attempts to due so is often thwarted by her injury.Letting go is hard to do in Shelby's case and this is like an opportunity which landed right in her lap. Pretty much holding her hostage, mangled ankle and all, Shelby can use this as an advantage to, in her devious state, "win" back the man she adores(more like obsesses about). There's this amusing scene where Liz finds a room which serves as a literal shrine to Mike, with pictures all over the walls, doodles, and heartfelt scribblings devoted to the man she yearns for. HOMECOMING is one of those movies which allows another actress her chance to play the psychotic, cold-hearted bitch role. There are all these Lifetime Movie clichés to stomach, thriller staples that have wore out their welcome. Such as the evidence, taped underneath the toilet bowl lid no less, where it proves that Shelby poisoned her mother. The revelation that Liz has been kidnapped, discovered by Mike in the knick of time. The numerous near escapes where Liz just about frees herself from Shelby's clutches. The victim who finds Liz bound only to be executed for turning his back on Shelby. How Shelby takes a licking and keeps on ticking, in ridiculous fashion..she takes a shot to the forehead by a ceramic toilet bowl lid, her head slammed up against a wall, and a variety of punches to the face with a football helmet. And, if you really think about it, the idea that this beautiful young woman who seems to have a degree of intelligence, would have this homicidal love for a boy, even if he's the town's famous football legend, is a bit over the top and hard to swallow. He's this sensitive dreamboat who just has a hard time accepting that Liz would leave him without even confronting him, though Shelby tries her hardest to get him to think so. And, Shelby flaunts in Liz' face how she'll get Mike back while her prisoner must suffer..all of this I've described will be quite familiar to those who watch these movies. It's really a sister to movies like SWIMFAN about female lunatics who do not respond well when their love is spurned by the young man they worship.Barton fulfills the requirements of such a role and Stroup is a nice young actress with a pleasant personality, whose Elizabeth doesn't deserve what is happening to her. It all has been done before folks, nothing new to see here. Michael Landes is Mike's cop pal, Billy Fletcher who is used as a tool in the screenplay to potentially talk him into reentering a relationship with Shelby. I do think, as evident by this movie, that Stroup is a star in the making. Matt Long is the young man Barton loves with all her heart. Funniest scene could be when Shelby starts eating a meat sandwich, possibly cut from the body of a victim she had just killed!
edwagreen
When seeing this film, I immediately thought of Kathy Bates' Oscar winning performance in holding James Caan hostage in "Misery."A young freshman accompanying her boyfriend back for a weekend homecoming gets much more than she bargained for when she is held captive by his vicious ex-girlfriend.The movie becomes a cat and mouse affair where the victim frantically tries to get away from her tormentor. Obviously, this is met without success.The ending could have been better. After getting a tremendous thumping from her helmet, when she is rescued by her boyfriend, the film appears to end only to have the demon waking up. Lord knows what else is in store. In addition, our fiend, Shelby, shot the policeman cousin of her lover when he discovered her escapade. Was he shot dead or just wounded? That's never clearly explained.