Jim Norman returns to his old hometown of Liberty, Missouri after accepting a teaching job there. He moves back along with his wife, Sally, and their son, Scott.
When Jim was nine, he had moved away from the small town with his parents after he had witnessed his older brother, Wayne, being murdered by a gang of greasers during a mugging in a train tunnel in 1963. Three of the murderers — Richard, Vinnie, and David — were killed shortly afterwards by an oncoming train, having parked their 1955 Chevrolet One-Fifty on the tracks. The fourth member, Carl, survived.
After returning to his hometown, Jim starts having nightmares about his brother's murder. Soon afterwards, three of his students are killed by the ghosts of his brother's murderers and, their killers, Richard, Vinnie and David return from the dead as students in Jim's class. The police are suspicious of Jim's proximity to the dead students.
The revived killers challenge Jim to a confrontation and make an attempt on his son's life with their car on the 27th anniversary of Wayne's murder. Jim discovers Wayne's spirit is stuck in limbo while the matter of his murder is unsettled.
Jim goes to the Cemetery and finds the graves of the greasers who say the wreck survivor Carl must complete their revenge. It is revealed that when Jim was a boy, he had taken the murderers' car keys which led to their deaths.
Jim returns to his abandoned childhood home and finds the old car keys that he took during the night of his brother's murder. Carl apologizes for Wayne's death and leaves with the gang. The greasers take Jim's family prisoner.
Jim returns to the train tunnel in which Wayne's murder took place. The greasers plan to kill Jim the same way they murdered Wayne and take Jim with them, but Carl is killed by Lawson after interfering. This opens the door allowing Wayne to return, and the brothers rescue Jim's family and manage to send the gang back to Hell. Wayne is finally at peace and moves on to the afterlife and Jim and his family go home.
The film is based on a short story by Stephen King that was first published in the March 1974 issue of Cavalier, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.
The film received an approval rating of 67% on review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes based on twelve reviews, its consensus reads: "Tim Matheson's gripping performance and a strong mood make Sometimes They Come Back an effective, if not wholly revelatory, Stephen King adaptation".[3]
Ray Loynd of the Los Angeles Times called it "a tight, moody work".[4]TV Guide rated it a two out of five stars and wrote that "the solid cast can't lift the material above the routine".[5]
Sometimes They Come Back was originally released on VHS by Vidmark Entertainment, and later on DVD in 1999 by Trimark Home Video. On September 11, 2007, a new DVD edition of the film was released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment through the film's current owner, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Olive Films released the film on Blu-Ray in October 2015.[6]
