Holiday Flix: Stephen King's Sometimes They Come Back

For one reason or another, I've not done this Movie as an Easter pick.  You could almost say that on the 3rd Year it rose.  Ha ha- sacrilegious.  Today's Film is Sometimes They Come Back, a 1991 Film based on a Stephen King Story.  A Film based on a Stephen King Story- how unique!  Even by King's standards, this one is a bit of a weird stretch.  The Story involves a man moving back to his Hometown with his family, only to discover that something from his past won't stay dead.  Can he finally face up to it?  Will any of this actually make that much sense?  Without SPOILing the Plot's weirder stuff just yet, I do wonder how there are TWO Sequels to this.  I guess you know what's coming next Year then.  To find out if this is more It than Lawnmower Man, read on...

A man- Tim Matheson- moves to his Hometown with his Family after an 'incident' in Chicago.  It's too expensive to shoot there, so just trust us.

What could go wrong?

Oh right- his traumatic past.

As we eventually learn, he lost his brother in an accident involving some bullies who decided to park their car on a train track to mess with them.  Guess what happened.  Oh and put 50s Greasers, Bullies and Train Track on your Stephen King Bingo Card.

He starts teaching at the School and then strange things start to happen.  The biggest is when a car- the same one hit by the train- chases down and kills his student.

So this was Filmed in Missouri and Carnival of Souls was done in Utah, but doesn't this remind you of that same bridge?

When the one student dies, a Greaser takes his place.  Why this 20-something in a class full of Seniors isn't weird to anyone is anyone's guess.

The group continues to kill and replace students until they get back to full power.

Given the fact that nobody sees the car or witnesses the crime, Matheson looks suspicious.

Mind you, the kid above was *literally* torn to pieces, so how does that look normal?!?

He finally finds the connective bit he needs to stop the gang- the lone survivor of them.

On the plus side, Sanderson isn't typecast as a Hacker/Computer Expert here.

The gang continues to attack him and his family, finally revealing their true forms when the Budget allows.

The only way to stop them: get his dead brother back.

Naturally, this all leads to a big showdown at the same tracks and the gang is killed again, but for real...assuming that they aren't in the Sequels.  The End.

It's fun and all, but so full of silliness.  The Film is supposed to be taken 100% seriously, but it is really hard.  For one thing, the Plot involves undead Greasers in 1991.  I mean, do I have to even expand upon this?!?  Second, said Greasers just act ridiculous, constantly doing this stupid laugh.  It worked for Tim Curry, but not for you!  Third, the whole premise is just bizarre.  As someone points out on IMDB, the group is killed because the keys were lost in the previous scuffle.  Back from the dead, they somehow drive around easily without the keys.  For the climax, they lose the keys...again and they can't drive away to save themselves.  Did that make sense?  They somehow act like dicks in public, but also drive a magic, invisible car.  On top of that, when they start to haunt the son, he sees stuff from his dad's memory.  I guess the idea is that *they* are projecting this, but, otherwise, how would he know any of that?  Their powers are just kind of vague for lazy screenwriting's sake.  They have a super-indestructible car (it flips over a parked car with no effort), can possibly teleport and project their pre-death forms to everyone.  Why not just give them a magic, laser-firing ring like Dracula had to while you're at it?!?  So, the final product is a mix of silly and super-serious.  It didn't totally work for me, but you might disagree.  I'll leave you with a pretty sad attempt to copy the 'Everything floats down here' bit from It...

Next time, I look at a Film with a familiar title.  Is it worse or better than the first one?  Stay tuned...