“Its refusal to behave is the point.”
The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

Sometimes They Come Back
Horror · TV Movie · Thriller · 1991
Desperate for a job to help him support his family, Jim Norman takes a position teaching high school in the town where his brother was murdered in front of him by teenage bullies twenty-seven years before. The teens who committed the crime are long dead, but now the kids in Jim's new class keep dying and being replaced by new students who look like the deceased hoodlums.
Sometimes They Come Back
“With "The Shining" and "Misery" Stephen King scared you to death. Now, he's going to scare you back to life.”
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
5.9 / 10
Community rating
Desperate for a job to help him support his family, Jim Norman takes a position teaching high school in the town where his brother was murdered in front of him by teenage bullies twenty-seven years before. The teens who committed the crime are long dead, but now the kids in Jim's new class keep dying and being replaced by new students who look like the deceased hoodlums.
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Sometimes They Come Back?
The Arthouse Gremlin
“The stranger, the better.”
Read their caseThe Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Watch in your region.
Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.
Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Tom McLoughlin
Written by
Mark Rosenthal · Lawrence Konner
Put Sometimes They Come Back on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
“Oddness is not depth.”
A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.






