Masters of Horror: Homecoming- War, Lies, Media, and Fake Patriotism

Alright lock in because this is going to be a long one. To start let me introduce Masters of Horror. It was an anthology horror show that aired on Showtime from 2005-2007. The idea formed because Mick Garris used to invite a lot of his horror friends over to dinner so they could chat about horror, the industry, etc. These dinners still take place, though I do not know if Garris is still involved. Anyway, after a few years with these dinners Garris decided to take the concept and turn it into a show. Each of the “Masters” would get an hour long episode to do with what they wanted, the only rule being it had to be horror.

It was a great concept that resulted in a show with a lot of highs and lows and some extreme variety. There are episodes by Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento, Takashi Miike, John Carpenter, etc. In addition to the directors being Masters the plotlines and even actors leaned into the concept. Episodes inspired by and outright about Poe, episodes based on the works by H.P. Lovecraft and Clive Barker, and actors like Robert Englund, Fairuza Balk, and Ted Raimi. Essentially the show was a celebration of all things horror and was by and for fans of the genre.

As I said, mixed results. The hour long runtime seems like it presented a challenge for some of the directors, and it can be on the cheesier side especially with it being on ShowTime, when it aired, and given the resume of some people involved. Now don’t get me wrong, I love that stuff, but it does mean that some of the episodes can feel a little antiquated or feel very locked into the time they were made. However, with the decades (oh god it’s been multiple decades) revisiting it is interesting. The show is a time capsule, if nothing else, of a very specific pocket time. I’ll probably do a write up of other episodes later, but as an example “Right to Die” is largely referencing the Terri Schiavo case, which for an audience around my age or older is something we likely remember distinctly.

Which leads us into “Homecoming.” “Homecoming” was from the first season and directed by Joe Dante. It is loosely based on a short story entitled “Death and Suffrage” which I have never read to make a comparison. When I talk about this show being from a pocket of time, this episode is a HUGE example of that. It features Robert Picardo, who regularly appears in Dante’s movies, as a Karl Rove like character. Also Thea Gill as Jane Cleaver aka Ann Coulter.

As briefly as I can, because a lot happens in this hour, the episode starts with Jane and our main character David on a talk show. David works for George W. Bush, and it is set during his attempts at reelection after the war. David is confronted by a grieving mother who calls in and says her son died for a lie. David gives a sympathetic answer and says that he wishes her son could come back and tell us how important it all was.

The answer goes over, well and Bush himself ends up using it in a campaign speech and the impossible happens. The dead soldiers do indeed start to come back. People naturally panic, but none of zombies seem to present a threat to anybody. Instead they all wander for a bit then end up in voting booths. They cast their votes then seemingly die again. At first David and the others are pushing this as a great thing until they realize the soldiers are not going to vote for Bush, they agree that war in Iraq was based on lies. From there they then start panicking and try to force the zombies to vote for Bush behind the scenes while in front of the cameras they disparage them and try to deny their right to vote.

Long story short Bush steals the election and soldiers from every war rise up, and we get to see real zombie action. In the end they are an undead army that will stand against anybody who lies people into another war or intends to take the choice away from Americans.

I understand that is not brief, but there is a lot that happens in this hour and I wanted to talk about it because boy has this episode been on my mind lately. First and foremost it’s not a great episode, not terrible but not great. I am sorry. The cheese factor is just a little too high. It is also not subtle, the heavy handed nature of it being a mixed bag because it can sometimes be a lot, but I also appreciate Dante being unwilling to risk people misunderstanding the message.

As one example the show says often, and bluntly, that The War in Iraq was based on lies. Not hard to understand intelligence or that we had to do it anyway or whatever other excuses were being floated at the time. It was lies.

It also calls out the false notion of patriotism. The entire time this group of people are espousing their love for the troops and love for the country right up until the moment it is inconvenient for them. And all of the in your face patriotism is countered with quieter moments.

One of the best moments in the entire episode shows the owners of a diner bringing one of the zombies in out of the cold and rain. Everybody else runs away from him, but they offer him comfort and admit they lost their own son in the military and wish they could see him again. Their kindness and compassion are a stark juxtaposition to the spectacle of the fake support.

And once again in “not subtle”, once the soldiers are no longer useful to our characters their switch is ugly. They publicly disparage them as I said. Words like “monsters” and “traitors” are used, and Jane even calls for them to be mobbed. They take one solider and threaten to kill his mother if he does not comply and help convince the others to side with them. And when they admit to having a plan to steal the election, our Karl Rove character says something to the affect that the people don’t know what’s good for them so they get to decide.

The episode wants to make it clear that this patriotism and love for America is fake. It’s a love of power and control, and the people behind it will literally, because they do, destroy the country to achieve it.

… I am just going to leave all that hanging and allow you to consider why it might feel especially relevant right now.

Another thing the episode not so subtly calls out is the media. As David and those around him are going through various stages of how they are responding to what is happening they receive very little push back and often help from the media.

It also impressively calls out how real people who were selling these lies to us moved through these spaces. Jane Cleaver is, and I am sorry to keep repeating this phrase, not subtle. She is Ann Coulter through and through. She is insulting, has no morals, and hides behind “I am not afraid to be a loud woman” faux feminism when really she is not empowering women, she’s just a bad person. At no point during any of this does she pause for even a second. She is fine with propping the soldiers up, she is fine with degrading them, she is fine with threatening their families, she is even fine turning the gun on these men herself at one point. And she is at the forefront of many of these plans.

This also serves to show the incestuous relationship between the media and politicians. David helps coach her and brings her in on the campaign. But remember Ann, I mean Jane, was not meant to be working for a political campaign. She was a pundit and writer who was actively doing propaganda and campaigning while not officially doing so.

This isn’t supposed to be a thing. You can’t have a functional free society when there is no more line between the media and politics.

And by the way, this is where I am going to go after the episode a little. Again hour runtime and this episode is over twenty years old, but it’s way too soft on the media. Even the little bit of push back David gets for his ever changing narrative with the soldiers is too much. The degree to which the real media rallied around the war with Iraq was disgusting. And the fact that in the last over twenty years the lines being more and more blurred is I think in large part due to the fact that there was no punishment (cosmic or otherwise) for a lot of the people that sold this lie. In Joe Dante’s world they are under the constant threat of an undead army making them pay for lies. In ours they still work in politics or for the biggest media companies.

I would apologize for soapboxing, but I can’t and won’t. There is no way to talk about this episode without talking about how so long afterwards we are still stuck seeing the cycles and bad things that Joe Dante screamed in people’s faces with this.

And again, not everything about it is perfect. There is also a whole bit about calling out conservative hypocrisy with Jane and David’s relationship being a little kinky. I get what they were trying to say, but I don’t think it needs to be said. I also think that while calling out fake patriotism it gets a little too overdone itself. A lot of speeches about war for the right reasons and how great America was before this that frankly have not aged well. Bush was not an arbitration. Also a lot of the freedoms we have in this country only extend so far and to certain people. And for us to live up to who we claim to be is going to require acknowledging that, which is still not popular.

Basically, it’s both a good callout of the time and of certain problems, but with age and watching how we’ve been in the post Bush world it simply did not go far enough to me. Not to be too cynical but a lot of fiction with a fairly positive message does not resonate with me anymore. And yes, I do consider cosmic justice to be a positive ending.

So I’ve spoiled a lot and have emphasized how cheesy the whole thing is, but I do still think it might be worth a watch. I think if nothing else it does encapsulate that time period pretty well. There is more that happens that I didn’t even get to, such as the first soldiers rising representing the soldiers that Bush had brought home under the cover of night to hide how many were dying. And many other little nods to some of the stuff that was happening at the time. If you are of a certain age you’ll probably walk away feeling a little sick and disappointed with what we’ve done since it premiered. If you are younger it’ll be a good look at what was honestly a really weird time period. If you are just looking for good horror though, probably not this one. There are other episodes that will fit the bill better and without being quite so aggressive with its messaging.

For me at the end of the day it makes me feel a lot of things.