Sometimes They Come Back

The Sometimes They Come Back series of made-for-cable-TV movies proceed from a common idea, lifted from a short story of the same name by Stephen King. Something happened in our protagonist's past, a challenge or crucial test of courage or resolve that he couldn't meet, maybe because of immaturity or some inner defect. Now, usually through a supernatural agency, preferably of satanic origin, that threat from the past that's been haunting our hero all these years has returned to give him another shot at it. Or to force him to deal with it directly. That's pretty much how it plays out in the first film and the second, Sometimes They Come Back... Again. Now comes the third variation, More. But it's really Less. The setting is Antarctica, Ice Station Erebus, where a CIA outpost is experiencing high casualties from an unknown source. In drop a couple of soldiers, one of whom, our hero Captain Sam Cage, turns out to be the target of the piece, whose past is at the center of the present deaths. Nothing really makes much sense here, including the action-packed ending that will have you saying things like, "Why did that work?" and "The babe who's bathed in white light is named Mary, I get it! But why is she dressed for a feminine hygiene commercial?" --Jim Gay