Sometimes They Come Back [VHS]
Desperate for work, troubled high school teacher Jim Norman (Tim Matheson) relocates his family to his rural hometown after procuring a much-needed job there. Once home he must relive and confront a childhood nightmare:  the high school hoodlums who murdered his older brother in a tunnel ambush, and were killed themselves by an oncoming train, are slowly rising from the grave to finish the job by killing Norman.  The ghostly hooligans, who appear as flesh and blood to students, start "transferring" into school when some of Norman's students mysteriously perish; however their phantom, fire-spitting car is invisible to all but their victims.  Suspicion for the inexplicably rising student-body count soon falls squarely on Norman, who must find a way to protect his wife and son from danger, vanquish the supernatural hoods, and cast off the shackles of his past.  It's a fairly straightforward plot with some obvious elements, but Matheson and his supporting cast (including wife Brooke Adams) create a suspenseful, fear-inducing atmosphere under the able direction of Tom McLoughlin from a screenplay adaptation by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal.--Bryan Reesman