A favorite aunt of mine used to try one diet fad after another and upon the failure of each one, pull out her old standby excuse: "Marie Antoinette worried over her weight her whole life. In which case there's just no help for the rest of us!" Never mind the lack of logic, I believed her. Now a similar conviction assails me when watching "Homecoming (released in Japan as "The Watchers"). Mischa Barton — "O.C." beauty queen — is the centerpiece of this grisly tale of jilted jealousy gone haywire and through it all I could only recall my auntie. I mean, Barton in the role of a woman who's alone, up all night in disheveled nonglory, simpering, swearing vengeance on a guy who rejected her like a bag of wet trash left out on the wrong day of the week. Well, really. We may as well relax girls, because there's just no help for the rest of us.

Directed by Morgan J. Freeman (no relation to the actor), "Homecoming" has the makings of a spectacular B-movie, but sadly lacks the guts necessary to push itself onto a truly cheesy level of existence.

Barton, who plays a small-town barkeep named Shelby, comes off as a mere gal unhinged when she could have been grossly, gorgeously deranged. Tsk. Apart from the fact that Shelby has probably watched "Misery" on her DVD player one too many times, there's not much in her behavior that's inspiring in a horrific way and the story hovers indecisively between Shelby's relationship woes and her not very original stalker antics (Kathy Bates should have stepped in to give a tutorial) while the camera never misses an opportunity to zero in on her cleavage and stay there for as long as decently possible. On the one hand, how could a woman this hot be treated like this? On another hand, fairly quickly into the story there comes a tremendous urge to stamp "He's just not that into you!" on Shelby's forehead.