I remember reading this short story when I was 13. It reminded me of a story I read in a Twilight Zone comic book in the 80s about a man going back to the town he left as a kid and encountering some less than friendly spirits from his past. That story made a big impact on me because it was one of the first horror stories I read, and it cemented my obsession with horror stories that deal with unfinished business and unhappy spirits and buried secrets from the past that come back to haunt you in the present. I always meant to watch this movie adaptation of the story when it first came out in the 90s, but I never got around to it, and now there are like, two or three sequels floating around in movie land. Let's see what I think about this movie.
This movie is about a high school teacher named Jim, played by Tim Matheson, who reluctantly returns to his hometown with his wife Sally played by Brooke Adams, so that he can take a job teaching at the local high school. Jim is haunted by the childhood memory of his brother Wayne being murdered by a group of teenage thugs who were hit by a train before they had a chance to kill him, too. The death takes place in the 60s in this movie, though it would have been the 50s in the original story. This memory is understandably haunting for Jim, but soon he begins to be haunted in a much more literal way by malevolent spirits. Will Jim be able to rid himself of the spirits before it's too late?
This movie originally came out on TV in 1991. The 90s were an interesting time for made-for-tv horror flicks, and we saw some like "Trilogy of Terror II" as well as other Stephen King adaptations like "The Tommyknockers" and "The Langoliers." This being a made for TV movie, there's not much gore, so the scares are more important than the gross-out as far as the plot is concerned. I feel bad for Jim trying to teach a class of high school deviants who obviously don't respect him, and he doesn't get much support from his boss the principal of the school. It's gotta be hard doing a job like that with no support, it's a thankless job. And it definitely makes his character more sympathetic.
This is another one of those movies where the main character is obviously haunted before anything supernatural even happens. You can't really blame him either, after everything he went through with his brother when he was just a kid. At least his wife finally believes him and actually helps him out when it's time to get rid of the ghosts once and for all. If I'm being honest, this movie is overlong and it could have stood being chopped down some. it would have made an excellent hour long episode of Masters of Horror, but at an hour and 38 minutes it just rambles too much and takes too long to get to the point. It's a shame, too, because there are some genuinely good moments in here that would have made for a great story. I do love Stephen King, but the man has a tendency to ramble on a little too much, which is the great thing about reading his short stories, because he doesn't have time to ramble when his format is going to be shorter. What this movie does is takes a short story and makes it longer again by adding too much padding and too much rambling for my taste, so I can't recommend this movie. Sometimes they come back and they refuse to shut up.
No comments:
Post a Comment