Children of the Corn

After going through the Stephen King's movies, like Pet Sematary, Christine, Salem's Lot, Carrie, It, The Grave Yard Shift, Thinner, The Shining, Needful Things,Fire Starter, all that stuff! Now, I found Children of the Corn!

This movie had some sick parts, like with the kids sliced up body was found dumped in the road! YUK!!!

Isaac ( John Franklin) was SO creepy how the way he stared! I feel so sorry for the kids in this movie because, they are being controlled by some possessed kid!

I own this movie on video, at home because, I love scary movies, especially Stephen King's films!

Give this gory film 8/10

This is the tale of a young couple (Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton) stranded in the deserted little town of Gatlin, Nebraska and stalked by a pack of adult killing children worshipping a demon living in the surrounding cornfields.

This very atmospheric piece is a rather humble b-movie that boasts an unusual and interesting premise (thanks to a pretty good short story by Stephen King) and delivers some decent performances from its cast (which is rare with children in general).

Although soft in its depiction of violence, the movie offers some creepy moments (especially in the still effective opening sequence). John Franklin, excellent as the child-preacher Isaac, makes for one odd and creepy looking kid and Courtney Gains inhabits his psychopathic Malachai character with obvious delight.

The cornfields are beautifully shot and the overall is boosted by a pretty efficient score by Jonathan Ellias. And to top this all up, R.G. Armstrong makes here an appearance (albeit a too short one) as a recluse gas station owner.

Don't be fooled though. The movie is far to be a masterpiece. At leading endlessly its main characters around cornfields and then through the deserted town (direct effect of superficially expanding a short story to feature film length), the movie ends up suffering from its slow pace ("Things just aren't happening fast enough" even says Horton at some point) with the characters taking what seems like an improbable amount of time to realise what is afoot.

The danger of young and impressionable minds blindly following extremist religious leaders is certainly an interesting theme but is here barely tapped into.

Finally the climatic sequence, with the manifestation of the collieflower looking "He Who Walks Behind The Rows", is a bit of a let down to say the least.

Those (not so minor) details however are not enough to warrant the bad press the movie gathered upon release (and Stephen King's severe criticisms). "Children of the Corn" is a well performed little soft core horror b-movie that surprisingly enough spawned a franchise and still provides eerie ambiance and creepiness that even, at times, make the few cheap scares work.

Maybe not so scary, but pretty cool horror movie after the short story written by Stephen King.

The children of Gatlin, under the influence of 'priest' Isaac, kill all their parents as it is the wish of the Lord who apparently lives in the corn. 3 years later a couple (Peter Horton and Linda -Terminator- Hamilton) are stranded in that same place. The kids, led by Isaac and his first man Malachai, set up a plan to sacrifice them to their God.

The movie gets a great start with the children killing their parents, after that it isn't much horror but more of a suspence movie. You got to see this only for the Malachai kid. Great casting!

6/10.

Maybe if those kids in Gatlin, Nebraska had gotten a visit from Professor Harold Hill and a boys band out of it, maybe they might not have killed all their parents. This Stephen King view of the mid-west sure makes one nostalgic for The Music Man.

It's one strange place that married couple Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton have come on their cross country journey. It reminded me of driving through Pennsylvania and the Amish country where you cannot get off the Pennsylvania Turnpike for ages, but on either side of the roads, nothing but woods and on the overpasses, Amish carts.

Here it's nothing but corn and when Peter Horton thinks he's hit a child on the road he goes for help and there's none. The town has been taken over by the devil himself working his evil through a young child preacher played by John Franklin. All the adults have been killed and the children are his disciples.

Of course some of the older ones are reaching puberty and the guy who was the high school bully Courtney Gains chafes under Franklin's leadership. He tries a palace coup d'etat, something along the lines of what old Lucifer himself did in heaven and everybody pays.

Children of the Corn is a good adaption of the Stephen King novel, it will please his legion of fans and maybe convert a few others.

Of course, horror movies are usually not scary. I have an extremely high tolerance for 'scary' movies, and I am usually not scared quite so easily. The most recent film to make me shiver with fear was WHAT LIES BENEATH and I saw that quite some time ago. CHILDREN OF THE CORN, did not really scare me, however, it did have a very good shock factor. It made me jump once or twice and I was generally enthralled with the story.

Having not read the Stephen King short story (I can't find a copy of the book) I found this film to be wholly original and terrifying in the film's idea. I just watched this movie for the first time last night, which is really something because I have already seen most of the classic horror films that people say are really good. CHILDREN OF THE CORN is probably one of the last really *good* horror films of the early 1980s that I have just seen.

I thought the film's ideas were creepy and the execution is done wonderfully. You will never eat corn the same way again. CHILDREN OF THE CORN gets 4/5.