SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK [1991]

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK…for revenge. Jim Norman moves his wife and son from the busy city of Chicago to his slower paced hometown for a teaching job. After a twenty year hiatus, Jim struggles to cope with the foreign territory of unruly high school kids and the all-too-familiar land of his older brother’s resting place. Jim was only a kid when his brother Wayne’s life was ripped away from him. While on their way to the library, Jim and Wayne were confronted by a group of nasty degenerates. Wayne fought back and was stabbed, then left to die as a train roared through the tunnel in which they were taking a shortcut. The gang failed to escape the train’s path, as well, after Jim snatched their car keys. Jim’s mind was permanently altered by the tragedy, and the surroundings of his childhood home exacerbate the pain of his loss. When a couple of his students are mysteriously murdered, further corroding his sanity, two more students are added to his class just as quickly. Jim immediately realizes his new pupils are the living dead, and part of the gang responsible for his brother’s murder. Determined to even the score, the punks have returned to earth to wipe Jim off the face of it.

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK is a story drenched in undying grief and tossed in horror. The basis of Jim’s childhood turmoil is explained thoroughly and well. His treacherous flashbacks reiterate the salt being rubbed in aged, but oozing wounds, adding a powerful element of emotional investment. The ghost punks, while dead, give the most amount of life to a movie often on the edge of flat-lining. They are perfect in their presentations as over-the-top “bad boys,” almost reminiscent of the tough guys in The Lost Boys and Stand By Me. The use of special effects is light, but the gang’s transformation from lively jerks into grimy zombies is memorable, without exception. There are a variety of supernatural powers at work that remain unexplained, which ultimately leads to more distracting confusion than peaked interest. For example, Jim develops psychic abilities and accurately predicts the location of a dead body. How? Undeniably, SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK feels like the made-for-television movie it truly is, but it’s packed with high tension and seriously grisly images one wouldn’t expect from a low budget motion picture made solely to watch in the living room. While the movie definitely had its moments, my high expectations for this particular Stephen King film adaptation were not reached. 

Rating: 6/10

Director: Tom McLoughlin [FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES]

Cast: Tim Matheson, Robert Rusler, Nicholas Sadler
Country: USA