Sometimes They Come Back / Sometimes They Come Back Again

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First, a word about double feature discs. Typically, a DVD has room for a little over two hours of audiovisual material per layer, with most of today´s players capable of reading two layers per side. That means there is a potential for over eight hours of movie time on a single DVD. Not that any manufacturer would ever consider such a thing; what with the cost factors involved, the selling price of a disc would be too high and the monetary return too low.

Even today, manufacturers are seeking ways to limit the amount of material they provide and still sell the product. For instance, in their efforts to reduce expenses, most companies no longer offer both standard and widescreen formats on their discs, as many were doing at the start of the DVD era.

But the idea of a double feature on a single disc is another matter. At the moment, there are only a handful of double feature discs like this one, and maybe their time has come. The Trimark representative I talked with explained that marketing "Sometimes They Come Back Again" would be easier than marketing its sequel because the first film was based on a short story by Stephen King and the author´s name would preface the title; but the sequel was not based on a King story and would be a harder sell on its own. The company thought that coupling the two movies together would help sell more copies overall. Makes sense to me.

People like bargains, and what better a bargain than an essentially free movie, an especially tempting proposition for manufacturers if the second movie wouldn´t do well on its own, anyway. This double feature idea might work well with older films in particular, and I hope more manufacturers pick up the idea. I could even see studios putting together old-fashioned movie theater double features, with cartoons, coming attractions, and maybe even a newsreel. With a little imagination, the possibilities are endless. The big step is convincing the bean counters.

In any case, Trimark have assembled this apt double feature, one movie per side. The first film is a perfectly competent adaptation of a Stephen King short story. "Sometimes They Come Back" tells of a man (Tim Matheson) who returns to his hometown with his wife (Brooke Adams) and their young son some twenty-seven years after a tragic incident took his brother´s life. The earlier event involved some local hoodlums harassing Matheson and his brother as kids, and a train taking the hoods´ lives.

Now that Matheson has returned home, he begins to relive his past, literally. He sees the old bullies again as ghosts, and they are out to get revenge on the man they still hold responsible for their deaths. Then the really creepy stuff starts!

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