Sometimes They Come Back(1991)
1991 · Tom McLoughlin · 98 min
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.
Horror · TV Movie · Thriller · Drama
5.9283 votes
TMDB score
2/5
Intensity
1/5
Gore
2/5
Stays with you
How Sometimes They Come Back scares
It opens like a quiet drama about a man returning to his hometown and only gradually tips into horror once the strange new students start showing up. The pace stays slow and talky for long stretches, with tension building through unease and bad memories rather than shocks. Its scares lean on creeping dread and a sense of old trauma catching up with someone, more than on graphic violence or constant jolts. Being a TV movie from the early 90s, it's mild by modern standards, more eerie and sad than truly upsetting, and works best if you like ghost stories rooted in guilt and small-town history.
On The Horror Database's 0–5 scare profile, Sometimes They Come Back rates psychological 3/5, visceral 2/5, gore 1/5, lingering effect 2/5, and overall intensity 2/5.
- Psychological: 3 of 5
- Visceral: 2 of 5
- Gore: 1 of 5
- Lingering: 2 of 5
- Intensity: 2 of 5
Slow burn vs Jump scares: 25 of 100 — leans Slow burn
Supernatural vs Real-world: 10 of 100 — leans Supernatural
Fun-scary vs Disturbing: 35 of 100 — leans Fun-scary
Intensity over runtime
Shape only — no eventsReveal pacing shapeHide pacing shapeHidden by default — shows where the tension peaks and lets up.
A slow-burn TV-movie chiller that spends most of its time on quiet unease before tightening steadily into a tense, higher-pitched final stretch.
Intensity across the runtime, 0 to 100: 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5.
How scary is Sometimes They Come Back?
On The Horror Database's 0–5 intensity scale, Sometimes They Come Back rates 2/5 — moderately scary, building its fear through slow-burn dread rather than shocks. It works on both fronts, unsettling the mind while going for the body. Expect it to be restrained with gore and fun-first. Some of it will follow you to bed, but it lets go within a day or so.
Watched it? Sign in to confirm whether this profile fits.
