Sam Panico Originally airing on May 7, 1991 on CBS, this TV movie adaption of King's short story was originally going to be part of Cat's Eye. The story was originally published in Cavalier Magazine and is part of the short story collection Night Shift. Jim Norman (Tim Matheson, Buried Alive) has moved back home to become a teacher, years after he watched his little brother Wayne get killed by a teen gang. Soon after, the murderers were killed by an oncoming train, but the nightmares have stayed with Jim for twenty-seven years.One by one, his students kill themselves and the greaser gang returns from Hell. All Jim has to do is reenact the murder by killing the last surviving member of the gang Carl (William Sanderson, TV's Newhart) and they will leave his family alone.Jim wants to bring his brother back from the dead too and is trying to find a way to make it happen. He and Carl try to fool the gang, but their leader stabs Carl and Jim's brother Wayne returns. The greasers try to escape again, but their car is struck by a ghost train. Wayne asks Jim to join him in heaven, but he decides to stay alive.The book and novel differ greatly, with Jim's wife Sally (Brook Adams, The Dead Zone) being killed by the gang and his brother Wayne being a demon that he calls for revenge.Two sequels followed, Sometimes They Come Back...Again (which Becca recommends more than this film and I've been trying to buy her a copy, but it's near impossible to find on DVD) and Sometimes They Come Back for More.This is a decent film, directed by Tom McLoughlin, who also directed Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. It has all the trademark King tropes and moves quickly.

bayardhiler As a general rule of thumb, the book or short story of which a movie is based on is almost always better than the film. Either that or in a small number of cases, the movie is just as good as the source. Very rarely do you have a movie adaptation that surpasses the original material. 1991's TV adaptation of Stephen King's "Sometimes They Come Back" is one such rarity. Now before I go on, let me just say that I love Stephen King and his style of writing, that combination of imagination, suspense, character development, and morbid humor that has become his trademark. But as this film shows, even the great Stephen King can sometimes be outdone on film. The story begins by introducing Jim Norman (played by Tim Matheson), a high school literature teacher forced to return to his hometown due to financial reasons. But the return forces Jim to relieve his darkest memory, that of his older brother being murdered by three hoods in a dark train tunnel. The hoods are killed by a passing train-partly due to Jim's actions-and since then, Jim has tried to move on with his life. But as fate would have it, certain dark souls aren't done with him and it's not long before several students go missing in his class and are each replaced by teenagers who look strangely like the hoods from Jim's past. From there, it's a fight for survival as Jim must protect his family and over come his past demons. Despite the fact that this is a TV movie, it has the feeling of being one made for the theater with its creepy atmosphere, competent acting, and good story themes. Tim Matheson does an excellent job transitioning from comedy to drama and getting lost in the character. The villains here are scary, riding around town in a supped up 50's hotrod with flames flying out the exhaust and are played to the hilt by the three actors, especially by Nicholas Sadler, who plays the leader of the pack, Vinnie Vincent. The makeup that's used for when the villains transform (you'll see) is quite spooky for being 1990's television work. But more than any of that, "Sometimes They Come Back" is able to incorporate the central theme that good will always triumph over evil and the ending may very well move some to tears. The original King story was a bit darker in its ending and how Jim deals with the three hoods who've come back and I don't think it had the same emotional feeling that this movie did. Perhaps if I had read the story before seeing this movie, I might have thought differently about it. Then again, maybe not. Either way, there's no question that "Sometimes" is a well made but sadly underrated Stephen King adaptation that deserves to be more well known than it is. You might be able to get a copy of the DVD from Amazon if they still have any. If not, don't fret because the whole movie is available on you tube. So, if you're in the mood for some spooky fun combined with a great story, "Sometimes They Come Back" is a great way to spend some time. P.S. If you find yourself teaching a class and a new student tells you he transferred from Milford, run away as fast you can to your nearest church!

Michael_Elliott Sometimes They Come Back (1991) *** (out of 4) A school teacher (Tim Matheson) returns to his hometown with his wife (Brooke Adams) and kid years after he witnessed his older brother get killed by a gang of teenagers who also died in an accident at the same time. It doesn't take long for the teacher to start losing control as he begins to see the dead teenagers in his dreams and soon after they're showing up in his classroom. SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK is based on the Stephen King short story and I think it translated to the screen very well. Director Tom McLoughlin does a nice job at building up the teacher's character, which is rather important especially when a lot of the running time deals with whether or not he's going crazy. I thought the director also did a very good job at making sure the movie went along at a good pace and that it never slowed down or became too boring. It's clear that he was limited on what he could do since this was being made for television but he's able to show some good horror elements including a sequence where the burned up bodies of the teenagers are on display. It also helps that someone like Matheson is so good in the lead role. I thought Matheson made for a quite sympathetic character and he made you feel for the guy, the tragedy in his past and he also made you want to see him succeed in the end. Adams' wife character is certainly one note but it was still nice seeing the actress here. The film does have some weak spots including a somewhat embarrassing ending, which seems to have been slightly influenced by GHOST, which was a hit the year earlier. Still, as far as King adaptations go, this here is pretty impressive.

amarna78 I am a Stephen King fan, and it is rare that I find any of the TV adaptations good. This one seems to be the exception. This is the first King Adaption that I actually liked BETTER than the short story. It is a rather emotional story about a man having to face his demons both figuratively and literally. The movie adaptation is very different from the real story, however I find it tells a more complete story. It allows you to feel the sadness Jim feels regarding the murder of his older brother when they were kids. Through a series of flash backs you see how his brother was murdered and by who. In the movie, the punks seem to kill his brother Wayne by accident. However, in the Short story version they deliberately stab him once in the chest and once in the groin. In the book they also did not die in the train tunnel, they died years later in a car accident when running from the police. I think the way they wrote it for the movies makes more sense for the story line. The "ghosts" have more of a reason to come back and haunt Jim, because in their eyes he is the reason they are dead (he has the car keys). In the book, it does not seem clear why they come back, other than he returned to the town?Also, in the Original King Version his wife Sally is killed by the ghosts and they do not have any children. In the book, Jim actually uses Dark magic to conjure up a spirit that helps him to return the ghosts to the after-world.He actually cuts off two of his fingers so that the dark spirit will help. The spirit takes the form of his brother, but really is not. Where as in the movie his Brother Wayne's Spirit actually comes back and helps. The movie ends on a happy note. The bad ghosts return to where ever they came from and Jim and his dead brother (Wayne)get closure. The Book version ends with the Spirit he conjured following him and Jim remembering the warning he had read regarding Black magic which was, "sometimes they come back". The special effects are a bit corny, however the actors do a decent job and it is a creepy enough ghost story (with minimum gore) to entertain you on a rainy day.