11 December 2024
Children of the Corn (1984)
93 min.
Directed by Fritz Kiersch.
With Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R. G. Armstrong, Courtney Gaines, John Franklin, Robby Kiger.
The horror genre is littered with movies which contain interesting premises, but somehow fail in the end to achieve their goals.

And Children of the Corn is one of them.

The story is simple enough. In the farming town of Gatlin, Nebraska, the children have a solemn responsibility to the welfare of the community. Namely, they must kill all the local adults in order to sate the hungry appetite of a demonic spirit. Once done, the spirit - known as "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" - will bring forth a bountiful crop of corn and all will be well!

Passing through on their way to Washington, a couple (Horton, Hamilton) get caught up in this rural insanity...and must fight for their very lives!

This Stephen King adaptation works well in certain sequences - and even has some nice death scenes - but overall it simply doesn't milk the full creepy potential it has on hand, ie with the ascetic, corn-reared rural children and atmospheric small town scariness.

It's great to see Horton and Hamilton work together here, but alas, Corn should've been much better. No doubt you'll find yourself wanting that cornfield to burn already, burn!

Followed by no less than six sequels!

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