n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Returning to his home-town, a teacher and his family find that the traumatic incident involving his big brother while he was growing up has caused the greaser-gang also included in the event to come back and torment them forcing a final showdown to right the wrong.This one here wasn't all that bad even though it does have some issues. One of the film's biggest positives is the fact that this one really manages to get the fear of being involved in a traumatic incident from the past in a small-town. The fact that the initial accident itself feels like the kind of accident that really could happen in such a location, with the greaser gang tormenting them and then getting caught up in the train coming through the tunnel does come off like a rather enjoyable setup for later, and with the way this holds up the different incidents later on that trigger the incidents later on. From the dropped set of car-keys to the shoes and the kids coming one-by-one into the classroom, the set-up from these incidents plays a great part in how this one manages to come off when it starts to reveal what their actual purpose is for returning. Those are quite fun as the different variations of them appearing as students in his classroom while taunting him in the town, the ways in which they manage to fool everyone in class as well as the town who constantly think he's having mental breakdowns based on his past history which comes into play quite nicely and overall manages to give this one a great build-up for the story to play out in the later half. With the group out and tormenting him and his family with some rather impressive stalking scenes of the family at the house and the later scene in the church where they get taken away leading into the final confrontation in the tunnel once again as this makes for a rather thrilling and engaging finish that plays out the fateful accident that came through in the rest of the film. With these action-packed scenes that come together into giving this a lot to like alongside the few fine make-up effects on the ghouls who look quite creepy and chilling, there's enough to like here that really manages to hold off the few minor flaws present. The film's biggest issue is the fact that we're not given a reason to care about why the greaser club is seeking revenge, as the film makes the point of them coming back for him killing them only they deserved their fate so it's really troubling to get into the story. The gang is a total joke that simply act like tough-guy greasers but are just so over-the-top in their silly threats that it makes for a pretty hard time to find fear in them for the whole film as they're return doesn't make any sense. The other big issue here does manage to carry on about that with there not being any real reason stated about why they come back to begin with as there's just nothing explained about why they come back to life here at that point in time. By simply showing up saying they want revenge but never explaining how they manage to do so when they clearly never deserved to do so in the first place makes them so simply non-threatening that as a whole the film really stumbles with the main villains. That it also gets a little too schmaltzy with the fantasy-driven finale that looks quite goofy and silly against the more realistic elements, these here do hold it down somewhat.Rated R: Language and Violence.

The atmosphere is quite good during this film and emotional scenes involving the family were effective too. Its quite easy finding affection for these characters.There is one problem though - in the process of increasing the story's length, the writers threw in scenes of students being murdered.IIRC, dead students simply disappeared from the story, replaced by (un?)dead people. Here we're shown how they died and it almost seems like the writers thought the audience would be bored without action scenes.They don't even match the film's tone and frankly, the crew proved capable of making me uncomfortable without anything happening on screen, meaning they were talented enough to not need random kills to interest the audience, making these scenes redundant.

I am a Stephen King fan, and it is rare that I find any of the TV adaptations good. This one seems to be the exception. This is the first King Adaption that I actually liked BETTER than the short story. It is a rather emotional story about a man having to face his demons both figuratively and literally. The movie adaptation is very different from the real story, however I find it tells a more complete story. It allows you to feel the sadness Jim feels regarding the murder of his older brother when they were kids. Through a series of flash backs you see how his brother was murdered and by who. In the movie, the punks seem to kill his brother Wayne by accident. However, in the Short story version they deliberately stab him once in the chest and once in the groin. In the book they also did not die in the train tunnel, they died years later in a car accident when running from the police. I think the way they wrote it for the movies makes more sense for the story line. The "ghosts" have more of a reason to come back and haunt Jim, because in their eyes he is the reason they are dead (he has the car keys). In the book, it does not seem clear why they come back, other than he returned to the town?Also, in the Original King Version his wife Sally is killed by the ghosts and they do not have any children. In the book, Jim actually uses Dark magic to conjure up a spirit that helps him to return the ghosts to the after-world.He actually cuts off two of his fingers so that the dark spirit will help. The spirit takes the form of his brother, but really is not. Where as in the movie his Brother Wayne's Spirit actually comes back and helps. The movie ends on a happy note. The bad ghosts return to where ever they came from and Jim and his dead brother (Wayne)get closure. The Book version ends with the Spirit he conjured following him and Jim remembering the warning he had read regarding Black magic which was, "sometimes they come back". The special effects are a bit corny, however the actors do a decent job and it is a creepy enough ghost story (with minimum gore) to entertain you on a rainy day.

Hey, I thought this was generally a well-executed film in terms of direction and acting. The story is very strong in the first half but falters a bit in the last half, but as a complete unit is overall fairly decent. Tim Matheson plays a man with wife and child who returns to his hometown where years ago his brother was killed by a gang of 50's style hoodlums. He takes a teaching job and begins having nightmarish dreams about the incident from his past and starts to see people killed before they actually are. Several of his students disappear and "new" students from Milford(cannot tell you where or what that is) start appearing in his class. They are the very embodiment of the dead hoodlums he saw in his childhood. They start giving Teach problems and soon we have an intensive thriller where the anniversary of the date where they and he once met years ago is arriving. Now, yes, much of this is contrived and predictable, but the effects and acting are strong enough to carry out some of the corny proceedings. Matheson is always good in these Everyman type roles which we are able to identify with. The hoodlums led by Robert Rusler and Nicolas Sadler are real creepy. William Sanderson is always good in just about anything. Brooke Adams is okay as Matheson's concerned wife. The best thing about this film is the atmosphere of small-town, middle America that director Tom McLoughlin is able to create. It is almost like it comes out of a Ray Bradbury tale. It definitely has Stephen King's stamp. The end does get a bit out of control and really suspends that disbelief too much, but generally I found this made-for-television film to be a pretty good little thriller. My favorite scene of all is when the thugs have Chip in their car and how they "dispose " of him. He certainly went to pieces in a crisis!