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Nurse Batty

The most entertaining movie villains tend to be wildly out of their minds, from Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction" to Jack Nicholson in "The Shining," but not all psychopaths are created equal. In "Homecoming," the new so-called thriller from Morgan J. Freeman, Mischa Barton plays one of the lamest, devoid-of-fun lunatics in recent memory; someone should have forced her to stay permanently in the O.C.

"Homecoming" is about a small-town waitress named Shelby (Barton) who's madly obsessed with her high school ex-boyfriend Mike (Matt Long). She's psyched for his return home from college -- he got in on a fancy football scholarship -- so they can rekindle their extinguished flame. Much to her shock and dismay, Mike shows up one weekend with his polished, wealthy new girlfriend Elizabeth ("90210's" Jessica Stroup). Game over for the happily-ever-after fantasy.

Behind Shelby's pouty lips and salon-fresh hair lies sheer evil, though Mike can't see it: "She's not a bad person; she just gets a little caught up sometimes," he informs his new squeeze ahead of time. That's one way of putting it: She plows into Elizabeth with her car, drags her back home and pumps her full of drugs under the guise of nurse care, then sporadically wounds her while yelling, "Look what you made me do!"

Sadly, the dominant tone of "Homecoming" is super-serious, which doesn't work in the slightest. The script from Katie L. Fetting ("Method") is rife with abysmal dialogue, pathetic scenarios and all the heft of a paper clip. Mike's girlfriend goes missing the first night and he doesn't think to look in his crazy ex's house? Is anyone actually that stupid outside of teen horror movies? Faring no better is the all-around acting, which is on par with children's puppet theater groups, though that's kind of unfair to them.

To make matters worse, the 100-minute film feels as long as the line at the supermarket when you're famished. Freeman showed promise with the sweet-and-simple "Just Like The Son" (a Tribeca Film Festival treasure currently stuck in release purgatory) and has since murdered it with this inexcusably bad knockoff of "Misery." Stay home.