Sometimes They Come Back

Jim Norman takes a teaching job at a high school in the town he grew up in, the only position he can find to support his wife and son. Returning there means facing the place where, twenty-seven years earlier, he watched his older brother die at the hands of teenage bullies, and where those same bullies were killed by a passing train. Soon after his arrival, students in his class begin to die one after another, and their places are taken by new pupils who bear an unsettling resemblance to the dead youths. The film is based on a short story by Stephen King.

Tom McLoughlin directed, working from a screenplay by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, with Michael S. Murphey producing. It followed McLoughlin's Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, released five years earlier. Tim Matheson plays Jim, with Brooke Adams as his wife Sally, Robert Rusler as Lawson, Chris Demetral as Wayne, Robert Hy Gorman as Scott and William Sanderson as Mueller. The production was handled by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Dino de Laurentiis Communications, and the film runs 98 minutes.

Made for television, it drew modest responses: on IMDb it holds 5.7 out of 10 from nearly twelve thousand votes, while on TMDB it sits at 5.9 from a much smaller sample. A critics' score of 5.3 from twelve reviews is close to the audience figures, suggesting a mixed but not sharply divided reception.