Courtney Gains won the role of Malachai by using a prop knife to hold a casting assistant hostage at the audition. He claims that one of the great honors of his career is having hundreds of people, even his son's friends, recognize him as Malachai and confess they found him terrifying, some having admitted his performance gave them nightmares. Apparently, even his own parents were greatly unnerved by him in this film.
On the dashboard of Burt and Vicki's car is a copy of "Night Shift," the Stephen King short story collection in which "Children of the Corn" originally appeared.
When asked by a fan how the effect for the burrowing "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" was created, special effects coordinator Wayne Beauchamp revealed that it was accomplished thanks to a special device called the "Turtle" - a wheelbarrow bucket flipped upside-down with added wheels. The device was set in rails in a trench, attached to a pulley system connected to a tractor and then covered in a tarp with a layer of dirt and vermiculite on top. The tractor would pull forward and the Turtle would move beneath the tarp, creating a mound of earth that traveled from one point to another. The trench ended in a sharp hill, giving the illusion that the creature beneath was diving deeper into the ground. Beauchamp added that the trench itself was dug by a local group of Boy Scouts who were interested in learning how films and special effects were made.
Though real corn was used for most of filming, polyurethane corn had to be used for the more difficult action sequences.