Sometimes They Come Back (1991)


"Sometimes They Come Back" was one of Stephen King's early short stories and one of the most memorable from his Night Shift collection.  It is pure King, portraying bullies in their worst light and taking any romanticism out of small-town life.  Like all the best King short stories it works best on the page because, where King has a habit of filling his novels with bloat at often has trouble nailing the ending, he rarely has that same problem with his shorter works.

The problem comes when someone decides to extend what would make a good story in an anthology movie or show to feature length, and that is what we have with the 1991 television movie adaptation of the story.  In fact, it was originally supposed to be one of the stories in Cat's Eye, but Dino de Laurentiis decided it would work better on its own.

Jim Norman (Tim Matheson) is a teacher that suffered a nervous breakdown sometime in the past.  Against his better judgment he accepts a job in his hometown, a place his parents moved away from when he was 9 after the death of his brother Wayne (Chris Demetral) at the hands of hoodlums, three of which were killed when they couldn't get their car off the train tracks.  He has returned with his wife Sally (Brooke Adams) and son Scotty (Robert Hy Gorman) and, though he tries to settle in, the memories come flooding back.

This leads to tension with certain members of his class, in particular a jock named Chip (Chadd Nyerges), who pressures Jim into giving him and his squad good grades to benefit for the football team, as well as the principal (William Kuhlke) who is aware of Jim's past issues.  Things get worse when one of his students, Billy Sterns (Matt Nolan), is run off the road by a car that looks like the one the hoods drove 27 years prior.  Soon a new kid, Richard Lawson (Robert Rusler), transfers into class, and he's the spitting image of the guy that killed his brother.  As other students die Lawson's compatriots show up as well, threatening Jim's family and demanding that their previous meeting play out one more time. 

The short story is much darker and involves much more mystery leading up to the return of three dead boys.  The script, by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, was altered in a way that made it more palatable for a '90s television audience, as the success of It started a flood of television adaptations of King stories as well as material that King himself wrote specifically for the small screen.  Thus, it has a more family-friendly ending to it.

The problem is that the script, and Tom McLoughlin's directing, do not have any emotional heft.  The flashback to Wayne's death seems matter-of-fact and Tim Matheson either is not given the opportunity to make his brother's or his students' deaths feel like they mean anything to him, or he just does not have the range.  They seem no more than occurrences that advance the plot.  Not even when his family is in danger does it feel like it is any more than just a storytelling technique.  It never feels like there are any true stakes involved.

This is enhanced by the over-the-top acting of Robert Rusler, Nicholas Sadler and Bentley Mitchum as the three dead punks that return.  There is some decent makeup work when they show their true forms, but the jumping around, hooting and hollering, makes them feel not like the real menace they were in the story but caricatures.  They are similar to the gang in Stand by Me, but Kiefer Sutherland and the rest felt dangerous.  These guys feel like a bunch of monkeys that found a knife.  

Being a television movie this is pretty bloodless, although the current transfer is in widescreen and somehow this received an R-rating for video release despite the makeup effects being pretty much on par for TV gore at the time and the movie not having much foul language or sexual content to speak of.  I remember it being a bit of a big deal when it was broadcast, which is the one time I had seen it, but if it had been conceived as a theatrical film I understand why, in the end, it ended up on television.  It should have stayed a part of an anthology where it would have been possible to have at least some of the same effect as the story. 

Sometimes They Come Back (1991)
Time: 97 minutes
Starring: Time Matheson, Brooke Adams, Chris Demetral, Robert Rusler, Nicholas Sadler, Bentley Mitchum
Director: Tom McLoughlin

 

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