Sometimes they come back
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Sometimes they come back |
| Original title | Sometimes They Come Back |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1991 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Tom McLoughlin |
| script |
Lawrence Konner , Mark Rosenthal , Tom McLoughlin , Tom Cring |
| production | Michael S. Murphy |
| music | Terry Plumeri |
| camera | Bryan Englund |
| cut | Charles Bornstein |
| occupation | |
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| chronology | |
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Successor → |
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Sometimes they come again is the title of a horror film based on the short story of the same name by Stephen King from the Night Shift collection . Originally produced for television, the film was released in 1991 in Germany and has since had two sequels.
content
After 27 years, Jim Norman returns to his hometown with his wife Sally and son Scott. Jim can take a position as a teacher in high school there. The return brings unpleasant memories for Jim, as he had to watch as a child 27 years ago how his older brother Wayne was murdered by four violent youths.
Flashback: On the way from their parents' house to the city, the two brothers take a shortcut through a railway tunnel. There they are stopped by four young people who drove their car into the tunnel. The brothers are forced to make a payment. When Wayne defends himself, he is stabbed with a knife by one of the teenagers. At the same time a train approaches. Jim runs to the tunnel exit, prompted by his dying brother, but can first grab the car key that has fallen on the floor. Without the car key, the teenagers, trapped in their car, are no longer able to leave the tunnel in time, three of them are hit by the train and killed, only Carl Mueller survives.
The events and memories from then put Jim psychologically strong, often no longer allowing him to differentiate between nightmare and reality (in the course of the film, the scenes of Jim's youth are faded in in several sequences), and he receives anything but a friendly welcome at the school of his teenage students.
Three students in Jim's class mysteriously die in quick succession. In the class, the places of the three deceased are already taken the next day by students who all come from "Milford".
In each of the three deaths, Jim is included as an "eyewitness":
- Billy Stern's student loses his wallet when he sets off on his bike after talking to Jim. Jim wants to follow the student in his minibus. He has to watch as Billy is followed by a sports car and pushed off the road. Billy falls fatally injured into a ravine . For other witnesses, however, it was an accident, as the vehicle was invisible to them.
- Still unable to sleep, Jim goes for a walk into town. There he meets his student Kate and speaks briefly with her. Later, in his nightmares, Jim sees Kate being followed and murdered near a barn.
- The student Chip, who has not been friendly to Jim himself, visits Jim at home in the evening to warn him about the two new students who have made known to Chip their mean attitude towards Jim. When Chip enters the street again, the vehicle with the two students from "Milford" approaches. After an odyssey, first holding on to the bonnet and later dragged into the car, Chip is murdered.
For Jim it is becoming more and more obvious that the new students from "Milford", Richard Lawson, Paul Vincent and David North, the murderers of his brother Wayne at the time, who have now returned as a zombie , want to take revenge on him and his family. All the more so after Jim learned that "Milford" is not a school, but a cemetery, and even more so after the young, apparently undead men express their intentions directly to Jim.
Jim's wife Sally has nothing to do with his theory for the time being, but is rather worried about his state of mind. This only changes when she and son Scott are followed and harassed by the three teenage thugs. Scott is followed by the three of them in their black car on the way home from school. He is barely able to get to safety, completely frightened. The family is later visited by the three young men in their house. Sally sees with her own eyes that the shots fired by Jim have no effect on someone who is already dead.
Jim realizes that there is no point in running away, and he wants to comply with the summons of his brother's murderers to seek revenge for their death. In order for the scenery to be perfect from the perspective of the three undead, Jim must first find the fourth accomplice, Carl Mueller. Before the crucial meeting, Jim takes his wife Sally and son Scott to safety in a church. In fact, it is not possible for the undead, in whose involuntary company Mueller is now, to enter the church. Scott and Sally are lured out of the church with a ruse and taken as prisoners by the youth in their vehicle.
Jim prays for help at his brother's grave before heading to the former railway tunnel. There, the same scene takes place almost identically as it happened exactly 27 years ago to the day. The three returning people drive their car (in which there are also Carl Mueller and Sally and Scott) into the tunnel to kill Jim, but are prevented from doing so by Mueller, who is stabbed to death by Lawson (symbolically like Jim's brother). The still 15-year-old Wayne Norman (who had stayed in a kind of shadowy realm during the 27 years) now emerges from a bright white trail of light. With the help of his brother's ghost, Jim can successfully defend himself until suddenly an imaginary train is heralded by the whistle of the locomotive. Again the murderers want to escape the tunnel in a panic, but get stuck in the sand. So the three murderers are caught again, this time for good, by the train and sent to hell.
criticism
“Horror film based on a short story by Stephen King that tries to combine elements of the genre with those of psychological drama. As a result, a large part of the tension is given away in favor of kitsch and sentimentalism. "
Differences to the template
The film adaptation differs in large parts from the short story serving as a template.
- Billy Sterns is hit by a car, but this is seen and described by witnesses. Kate falls from the roof of her apartment block while trying to feed her carrier pigeons . Witnesses see three teenagers on the roof. Chip disappears without a trace with a suitcase and a little saved money, it is implied that he knew he would be next and therefore fled.
- Jim and Sally are childless in the story. Jim doesn't tell Sally about the new students, as he generally never talks about the events surrounding his brother's death. Sally notices that something is bothering Jim, but he refuses to talk to her about it, although she even suspects that it has something to do with the murder and speaks to him about it. On the same evening she is murdered by the undead in an unspecified manner.
- Jim does not visit his brother's grave, which is in a completely different location, the brothers' hometown. The story takes place in a different state. There is still a railway tunnel in history. It's a railway bridge, the murder takes place under it . However, at this moment a train is passing over it, which is why nobody hears the dying boy screaming.
- It is stated that the young men drove off the road at excessive speed a few months after Jimmie's brother was murdered and died in the accident. The fourth perpetrator, named differently in the book, is still alive and serving in the army. But Jim is only told this, this character does not appear.
- After realizing he was dealing with supernatural powers, Jim obtains a book on incantation. He goes into his classroom and conjures up a demon to whom he sacrifices the blood of a cat and his two index fingers. He puts on a record with railway noises. When the undead arrive in the classroom, the demon forces them in the form of Jimmie's brother to recreate the scene from that time. He destroys the undead and disappears, but not without warning Jim that he's coming back .
More details about the film
- The film was not originally produced as a feature film, but for television and video publication. In the USA it was first broadcast on television on May 7, 1991. In Germany, the film was also shown in cinemas, for the first time on August 22, 1991. The German-language video version was released on January 27, 1992. The German-language video / DVD version or TV version (93:45 minutes including end credits) has been shortened by around 4 minutes compared to the original version (approx. 98 minutes).
- The following film error can be seen in the film: While Billy Sterns is being followed by the youngsters in the car, you can see David North sitting in the back of the car (after midnight). After the murder, however, only Richard Lawson and Vinnie Vincent are in the car (after 24:45).
- The film was first released on DVD in the UK and Northern Ireland on April 9, 2012 .
Sequels
The two sequels were staged directly for the video market.
- 1996: Sometimes They Come Back ... Again II (Sometimes They Come Back ... Again)
- 1999: Sometimes They Come Back ... for More
Web links
- Sometimes they come back in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Sometimes they come back atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- Sometimes they come back in the online film database
swell
- ↑ Sometimes they come back. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Premiere dates in the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Description of the film ( memento from May 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) in the Dirk Jasper FilmLexikon
- ↑ Sometimes They Come Back… on UK DVD