Sometimes They Come Back

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK

This DVD/Box Set is Region 4 and the special features (or lack thereof) may not be on DVDs/Box Sets from different regions, you have been warned.

I’m writing this review at 1:26am, chances are I’ll be up long after I finish writing, chances are it’ll be the same tomorrow night, the night after that, and then the night after that, you see the reason why I stay up into the wee hours of the morning is simply because I can. Sometimes it seems that the filmmakers cranking out (Stephen King) adaptation after adaptation have the exact same mindset.

There have been so many that it’s hard to pick up a new copy of an old King novel and not see the words; “Now a major motion picture” printed across its cover. It’s at this point that I’d normally rave and rant about how director Tom McLoughlin botched up an otherwise well made and genuinely creepy story, but Sometimes They Come Back is by no means a bad movie, it’s just not a very good one.

When he was just a kid, Jim and his big brother were walking home one day when they decide to take a detour through a short rail road tunnel, movie lore clearly states that nobody can do such an act without sever repercussions so it’s not surprising that their little trip is cut short in the form of a gang of grease heads in a car, they attempt to mug the brothers, accidentally killing the older one.

A train decides to stop by and say a quick howdy-doody to them all, the grease audition rejects are killed when they realize that their keys are missing. Jim manages to survive.

Years later, Jim is now an English teacher with an anger problem who takes up a job teaching in a new town, his students are your typical jock fellows who want nothing more then to just sit around and gawf, things start getting kooky when Jims some of Jims students start getting killed off and replaced with very familiar looking fellows who drive a very familiar car…can you see where this is going?

I can’t believe how much potential this movie wasted, besides being unbelievably dated to the point of incoherency by today’s standards, there is so much that could have been done better, the whole idea that Jim is imagining the thing he sees could have been better explored.

Then there’s the ending…can anyone say stupid? The movie substitutes the novels darker, more ambiguous ending for a happy upbeat brotherly love ending, it’s cheesy, it’s sappy and it’s crappy.

As for the disc itself….well there’s not that much to tell, the picture quality is not spectacular, it looks like a shitty VHS transfer, hell I don’t doubt it, there’s only a 2.0 Stereo track and no special features of any shape, way or form, not so much as a trailer nor a filmography.

Waste of time, waste of space, but thank god I didn’t pay for it!

MOVIE: 2 out of 5

DVD: 0 out of 5

Sometimes They Buy This DVD On Amazon.com