Sometimes They Come Back

Along with his wife and son, a man reluctantly returns to his hometown years later to take a teaching job. It isn't long before ghosts from his past come back to haunt him and do much worse. Tom McLoughlin, director of the most overrated film in the "Friday the 13th" franchise, directed this made for TV adaptation of the Stephen King short story.

Tim Matheson stars as the man tortured by memories of his brother's death and the men responsible. The film is strong on mood, successfully bringing to life that sense of time, place and small town atmosphere that King's stories thrive on. The film's best quality is it's villains. Robert Rusler is particularly intimidating as leather-clad gang leader, Lawson. The scene where Matheson first sees him again, posing as a student in his class, makes for a potent moment. Another great scene takes place in the gang's phantom car as they show their true forms to a jock victim.

Unfortunately, the film doesn't keep it's momentum going as we head toward the finale. The climax is a bit of a mess, and the ending gets overly schmaltzy. The ending to King's original tale would have worked a lot better than what we get here. As it is, this is worth seeing for the villains and overall mood, but it's definitely flawed. Brooke Adams doesn't get a lot to do as Matheson's wife.

"Sometimes They Come Back" by Tom McLoughlin("Friday the 13th Part 6-Jason Lives","One Dark Night")is an adaptation of the short story written by Stephen King.The plot is simple:a school teacher(Tim Matheson)is chased by the dead punks who killed his brother when he was a kid.The film is well-made and has some creepy moments.The direction is solid,the acting is pretty good,unfortunately I found climax to be the weakest part of the film.Still if you like horror movies give this one a look.Followed by two sequels!

An interesting ghost story about Jim Norman and his older brother Wayne. Both of the young boys were touted by a group of older boys, greasers if you will. These greasers ended up stabbing Wayne in a train track tunnel one day, a train came and during the madness all were killed except Jim and one of the greasers - both got away safely. Years later Jim ended up married with a young boy of his own and became a school teacher. They moved back to Jim's hometown where his older brother and the greasers were killed. Now the the vengeful greaser ghosts are wanting Jim dead - they will stop at nothing.

Not a bad film. These are a gang of evil vengeful spirits, just as nasty and no good as they were when they were alive. They can manifest themselves, materialize, into solid matter. They seem to be seen by others only when they want to be seen and they seem to have the ability to chose who sees them.

6/10

90's character actor tim matheson stars in a surprisingly scary adaptation of a stephen king short story about a guy returning to the town he lived in when he was a child which brought back nightmares of the incident that led to the deaths of his brother and the three hoodlums who tried to mug them. It takes a lot to spook me but the 3 main villains in this really played their part and played their bad guys role to the extreme. I was surprised to see this was merely a TV movie, there's always a diamond in the rough and this is one of them. While there are some glaring plot holes and some questions that are not answered, it doesn't detract from being a chillingly entertaining tale about past indisgressions in small town America.

I'm not saying this is a great film(it clearly isn't), nor a great horror film, but it had its' moments and I expected a bit less than what I saw, and that was a pleasant surprise. I was impressed with Tim Matheson's performance, although I'll forever link him to Animal House, but he portrays a serious role in fine form in this film and is very convincing. I never read King's story so I can't compare one to the other, but this version was fairly easy to follow with creepy moments throughout, although it seems that I've seen the "car greasers" in other King adaptations before this movie as well, like Stand By Me and Christine. As a horror buff, let me add that this isn't very scary, but as a stand alone film it isn't that bad. I recommend it, but not that highly, as there's a reason this film is rarely on. I would say watch this for Matheson's performance and some creepy scenes too.