Sometimes They Come Back... Again

Jon Porter returns to his hometown after the sudden and bizarre death of his mother. He hopes to leave as soon as the funeral is over but it's too late. The sinister forces that caused his sister's brutal murder 30 years ago are back. Jon knows the nightmare can't continue. He must stand up to his fear and exorcise the demons who have risen again to take posession of his beautiful teenage daughter - body and soul. "Sometimes they come back again" features a pretty routine plot, though there are some good special F/X and an excellent cast (especially for a low-budget genre picture) to back it up. There are also a few tense or frightening scenes, lots of (Very impressive) gore but there is some bad writing but over all it's much better than it could have been. My rating for "Sometimes they come back...again"-6.5/10.

Direct-to-video sequel is actually more of a re-adaptation of Stephen King's original story. Michael Gross plays a psychiatrist who goes back to his hometown following his mother's death. Accompanying him is his teenage daughter, Michelle (a young Hilary Swank). Gross soon realizes that they're being targeted by the men who sacrificed his sister in a satanic ritual 27 years earlier, only they're no longer human.

In some ways, this is better than the first film. For one, it features an overall darker tone. It doesn't get all sappy either, and the idea to have the gang return as demons instead of ghosts works well, also tying into a ritual from the original story that the first adaptation omitted. I preferred the father/daughter dynamic over the family one, and the addition of side characters, Maria and Jules, was certainly welcome.

On the other hand, even as demons, Alexis Arquette and company didn't come off quite as menacing as the gang from the previous flick. I think that had to do with some lame one-liners. There's also the fact that I recognized one of the gang, Glen Beaudin, from the silly 90's TV series, "Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad", so it's hard to take him too seriously as a threat. The priest character is way over the top as well, and the annoying lawnmower idiot couldn't get off my screen fast enough.

Still, this is a fun take on the King tale, and we get some interesting imagery such as death by flying tarot cards and Swank getting it on with a demonized Arquette. It's far from great, but it makes a nice companion to the first, as both have their qualities and misfires.

Sometimes They Come Back...Again (1996)

* (out of 4)

A man (Michael Gross) returns to his hometown with his daughter (Hilary Swank) after the death of his mother. Once there he sees a teenager who looks like the same man who murdered his sister thirty-years earlier and now he's after the daughter. SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK...AGAIN is a pretty poorly produced sequel that ended up going direct-to-video and it's easy seeing why. What the producers have basically done is take the original Stephen King story and just use the basic concept of it and then add some new stuff of their own. This new stuff includes the teenage killer being a Satanist and this here leads to all sorts of stuff dealing with a cult and their needing to scarifies the daughter. I don't mind when someone adds something but if you're going to do it then you really need to improve the original idea or at least do something interesting. That doesn't happen here and we're basically left with a cheap version of the original film with a few more horror elements thrown in. I'm really not sure what the point of adding the horror elements were as everything is fairly tame, the deaths unmemorable and the special effects are at times laughable. Even worse is the voice alteration that they gave the main bad guy. I'm not sure if someone thought this was scary but it was more laughable than anything else. I've always liked Gross but he's pretty forgettable and way too boring here. It was somewhat fun seeing future Oscar-winner Swank here and especially in a rather weird sex scene. The rest of the supporting cast range from decent to boring. In the end, this sequel is clearly just a cheap excuse to try and milk some money from a fairly popular film.

Sometimes They Come Back...Again is better than the original in some parts, but it is also worse. The flashbacks that appear throughout the movie are interesting and leak out information about the main character's past bit by bit. There are some good characters. My two favorites are the main villain, Tony (Alexis Arquette) who is very creepy, and Father Archer Roberts, a mysterious priest who the main character seeks help from. (Father Roberts is played by William Morgan Sheppard, who also had a similar role in Zork Nemesis, a cinematic computer game that also has a very somber, creepy mood. Check it out) The story is similar to the first movie, Jon Porter (Michael Gross) moves back to his hometown with his daughter after his mother dies. When he gets back, three demons from his past come back to terrorize him and his daughter. I smiled when several references were made to the original movie. Stephen King had put a demon raising ritual, in which you must cut off a finger, in his short story and it didn't make it for the first film, but this part of the story ...came back.. for the sequel. With all that the movie had a great, creepy mood to it, but unfortunately it begins to feel like a slasher movie, with a few characters dying miserably. That's the only element of this movie I don't like. Two characters died horribly on-screen, crying and screaming. In my opinion, that was a little inapropriate but, oh well. This movie is still good for any fan of the original movie.

That's right! It's WORSE than the original! Interesting characters? Suuuuuuuure, uh-huh, have fun in that padded room of yours. The plot, characters, etc. all could've been pulled out of the Big Hollywood Grab Bag-O-Cliches, and probably were. Think about it: The wonderful good girl, the slutty but friendly girl, the extremely sweet at first but turns-out-to-be-evil guy, the weird psychic girl. Real original, you can only find THAT in about 436 other movies. It wore out the already-tired original one, plus screwed it up even more with the stupid (and you can't say this isn't the King of Cliches, or at least some royalty) occult theme. Done in a very cheezy way, also. (Personally, though, I did find it quite funny with--that thing about the ears. But that only lasted a second, so it's not much in the way of redeeming value.)