Jim Norman (Tim Matheson) is a regular guy with a wife and kid who is forced to move back to his old childhood hometown where they are the only ones to offer him a job teaching high school. He’d done something that had gotten him in trouble and now he has to go where the opportunities are. It’s a bittersweet return home because when his family left, it was under shadowy circumstances. He and his older brother ran afoul of a group of local hoods when they were walking through a train tunnel. The hoods pulled up in their car and harassed the boys, demanding money. Jim’s older brother was accidentally stabbed and just seconds later, a train came roaring down the tracks, demolishing the car and killing the hoods. Jim made it out alive, the only one to do so. Now he’s back in town, the ghosts of his past haunting him. The only problem is, those ghosts are taking on fleshly form, because one by one, kids in his class are being killed and replaced with “student transfers from out of town.” These transfers are, of course, the hoods who killed his brother. Soon, the hoods are after him and his family, coming to exact revenge. Jim must figure out a way to stop them, even if it costs him his own life.
Based on a Stephen King story, Sometimes They Come Back was made in the early 90s and kind of falls into that netherworld of cinema where the 80s were still hanging around like college kids prowling the local high school. I saw it upon release and did not remember it fondly. Mostly I thought it was dull and a letdown, the original story being much more riveting and scary. Watching it again, it seems my instincts held true. Even though it is only an hour and a half long, it feels much longer. While things don’t plod, they do tend to drag. The story is all there, the sentimentality is all there, the bad guys are creepy and weird and Jim is an interesting protagonist, but something just doesn’t work. I’m not sure what it is but it’s like a piece is missing or the teeth in the gears don’t quite match. This one stutters when it should soar. And then by the end, it gets very goofy and feels more like a Hallmark TV Movie (do they still make those?) rather than something genuinely scary and affecting. What was a hot toddy of a short story was somehow turned into a weak pot of tepid tea as a movie. It isn’t bad, it’s just…dull.
Stephen King adaptations are tricky things. There were a lot of them in the 80s and quite a few in the early 90s. Some of them are simply incredible, others pretty good, but there’s a lot of lame ones. Count this among the latter. It isn’t a piece of crap, but it still stinks just enough to make you flush the toilet.
★★☆☆