Trimark Home Entertainment presents

Sometimes They Come Back...For More (1998)

"If you guys are waiting for Hell to freeze over, you're too late."- Lieutenant Brian Shebanski (Max Perlich)

Stars: Clayton Rohner, Faith Ford
Other Stars: Max Perlich, Chase Masterson, Damian Chapa
Director: Daniel Berk

Manufacturer: Crest National
MPAA Rating: R for (language, horror violence and brief nudity)
Run Time: 01h:29m:40s
Release Date: 2000-06-30
Genre: horror

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
C+	C-	B	B	D

 

DVD Review

I've always been a sucker for the "isolated Arctic military outpost" genre, which all started when my father took me to see Ice Station Zebra way back in 1968. Not long after that I discovered The Thing From Another World, with James Arness, during one of those Saturday afternoon monster movie marathons, and of course John Carpenter's The Thing is almost the definitive example of the genre. I perked up when I popped in Sometimes They Come Back...For More, because the cover art features a desolate looking Arctic base (OK, it's supposed to be Antarctica), with a demonic red claw bursting through the ice.

This 1998 horror sequel-of-a-sequel is based ever so loosely on a Stephen King story. To be honest, it's really only connected by part of the title, as King's original story of 1950s dead kids returning years later to seek revenge has nothing whatsoever to do with this particular film. Instead, we have a remote Antarctic governmental outpost where weird and deadly things are happening. According to reports, one of the scientists has gone "postal" and murdered a few of his fellow workers. Cage (Clayton Rohner) and O'Grady (Chase Masterson) are a pair of military officers helicoptered in to straighten things out, but when they arrive the only two survivors are Wells (Faith Ford) and Shebanski (Max Perlich). Someone, or something (this is a horror film, after all), is lurking out in the sub-zero Antarctic, and when dead bodies start coming back to life things really start to get ugly.

The first forty minutes or so are kind of fun, with plenty of low-grade The Thing-styled situations going bump-in-the-night. However once the full plot is revealed, it quickly degenerates into a silly demonic tale that actually features a character reading a book titled plainly in English Raising Demons, though all the text happens to be written in some ancient language. I knew things were going to get bad when Cage ran out in the 70-below weather in just his fatigues, and he didn't freeze to death. Adam Grossman's script has a couple of neat unexpected twists, but not enough to really save the story from turning into another variation on Satanic worship.

I suspect that Daniel Berk was desperately trying to hit the ninety minute mark, because the closing credits crawl so comically slow I thought I had accidently hit "slow-mo" on my remote.

Rating for Style: C+
Rating for Substance: C-

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.85:1 - Widescreen
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	no

Image Transfer Review: Trimark's 1.85:1 nonanamorphic widescreen transfer looks remarkably presentable. I didn't notice much in the way of dirt or specks, and all things considered, the overall image quality is pretty sharp on this third-tier horror film from 1998. Colors are respectably bright, though fleshtones sometimes take on an exaggerated golden hue on some of the interior sequences. Black levels aren't stellar, but do provide adequate contrast and shadow depth. There is some minor grain, evident predominantly during a couple of the nighttime snow scenes.

Image Transfer Grade: B
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
DS 2.0	English	no

Audio Transfer Review: The 2.0 Dolby surround track from Trimark gives a slight dramatic lift to the proceedings (and it needed it), with the help of some nicely mixed effects cues. Though the rear channels are not used heavily, the front channel directional imaging is adequate. Dialogue is clean and hiss free. No complaints.

Audio Transfer Grade: B 

Disc Extras

Static menu
Scene Access with 24 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English, Spanish, French with remote access
1 Original Trailer(s)
2 Other Trailer(s) featuring Sometimes They Come Back, Sometimes They Come Back Again
Packaging: Amaray
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: single

Extras Review: Trimark has included trailers for all three films in the relatively unrelated series (Sometimes They Come Back, Sometimes They Come Back Again, and Sometimes They Come Back...For More). Print quality for the first two are god awful, too. Twenty-four chapters and subtitles in English, French and Spanish complete the supplementals.

Extras Grade: D
 

Final Comments

Sometimes They Come Back...For More collapses into a goofy demon worship saga, and when it stopped being an "isolated Arctic military outpost" film I lost interest.

I'm sure Stephen King really loves having his name on something like this. Not.

Rich Rosell 2002-06-20