But What If I Haven't Seen the First 665?

In continuing my quest to watch all the Children of the Corns I've thus far missed, I've started accumulating some details that tie the franchise together. Chief amongst them: car trouble.

Parts I, V, and now VI (excuse me: DCLXVI) kick off by stranding or temporarily stopping their would-be victims on the road. 

I promise there are more interesting things to be found in Isaac's Return, but that just seemed worth noting.

Quick Plot: Hannah is on a solo road trip to investigate the secret of her birth. Some 19 years earlier, she was adopted from a sleepy Nebraska town and is now eager to learn more about her cursed heritage. After uneasily picking up a religious man on the road, wild hallucinations cause her to run into a whole row of corn. The shifty policewoman on call sends her to the shiftier town doctor (Stacey Keach!), whose clinic is housing none other than a comatose messiah.

It's Isaac's Return!

Meanwhile, Hannah nearly finds herself in another accident when a truck tries to run her off the road. Don't worry, it's only her birth mother (Nancy Allen!) trying in vain to get her kid back to safety. Stubborn Hannah continues to ignore every red flag, even when they all seem to be on fire and wrapping her in knots. Part of that is due to the helpful hunkiness of Gabriel, a mysterious local who seems to be able to save Hannah whenever she needs it. 

Part 6(66) is refreshing in following up the original film with, cue the title: Isaac's Return. John Franklin's slithery cult leader was always a highlight, so continuing his story, in theory, is enticing. Unfortunately, there's almost too much story here. All-stars Allen and Keach feel wasted, while Hannah's actions are so dumb that it's hard to stay invested in her fate. Worst of all, we're lacking a key element of this entire franchise's title: 

I know I complained a bit about the lackluster main villain in Part V, but at least he was underage! Isaac's Return seems to have forgotten that the most haunting and interesting thing about Children of the Corn is that these are, you know, children. Children doing horrific things to adults! That's what we're here for!

But I guess we'll have to settle for Stacey Keach going weird.

High Points

Director Kari Skogland might not have had the same affection for the actual Children of the Corn franchise that some of us weirdos do, but she does have a great eye, staging some sequences in quite an effective and unique way

Low Points

No shade to actress Natalie Ramsey (doing what she can with very little), but I can't remember seeing a dumber lead character. Her own MOTHER is telling her to leave town, and yet, after being near axe-murdered and drugged, she still hangs around. There's a line

Lessons Learned

Never loan anything to Matt

After narrowly escaping abduction and human sacrifice, the natural celebration is a cold hose shower and unprotected barn sex

Ladies, please remember that you are under no obligation to carry an antichrist to term

Rent/Bury/Buy

Obviously if you're a CotC completist like me, you're going to watch Part 666 and get something out of it. The bigger question is whether this film stands on its own outside the franchise. On that note, I'd reluctantly say not quite. For a straight-to-video late '90s horror, it's about average, but anything that makes it more is really its own relation to the series. 

Take Five

 

I don't really consider myself a completist, but there are some pockets of pop culture that feel wrong not to master. 

Case in point: a seemingly endless horror franchise centered on murderous children.

This is my bread and butter! Or more appropriately, this is my butter-slathered corn!

I have a deep affection for 1984's Children of the Corn, a film I grew up watching far too often. Every member of my family has, at one point in time, randomly deepened their voice to moan, "Malachaiiiiiiii". It's just what you did in the Intravia household.

We rented the first sequel as soon as it came to our local video store. Some decades ago, I tried to continue on and did manage to watch parts III (the city one with Charlize Theron) and IV (the dull one with Naomi Watts) and eventually got back on track with the late aughts remake and must-remake-quickly-to-retain-rights sequels. I rather enjoyed the most recent, fairly dumb one. And with the smell of fall in the air and my 4-on-1 Blu Ray on my shelf, I figured it was time to dive into the installments I missed.

Quick Plot: A young boy named Ezekiel is alone in the cornfields when he stumbles on some kind of entity that Care Bear stares some kind of green laser at his body. One year later, a couple is bemoaning their disappointing crops when Ezekiel comes to visit, laser levitating the man and summoning his friends to murder the woman with sharp farm tools. Welcome to Gatlin!

The next day (maybe? what is time?), a horrid college age couple are driving through town when they stop to get hacked to death by the same kids. Their four friends are a few miles behind and crash into some corn, derailing their ill-defined plans to scatter their late pal's ashes. 

The group swings by a bar manned by stunt coordinator Kane Hodder. Allison is shaken when she learns that the children one town over are under the sway of cult leader Luke, who preaches the word of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. That's the same entity Allison's younger brother Jacob ran away from home to follow, and feeling guilty for abandoning him to their abusive alcoholic father, she decides to track him down.

Things go as well as you'd expect for a quartet of young people stranded in a rural town where children murder trespassers and sacrifice themselves to an eternal flame burning in a silo. 

Allison reunited with Jacob, discovering that he's about to be both a father and human sacrifice. Depressed friend Kir (played by the camera-ready Eva Mendez in her film debut) finds herself drawn to the peace of the kids' religion while Tyrus and Greg (Alexis Arquette!) try to help Allison save her brother. Sheriff Fred Williamson is of little help.

Well, he does achieve some kind of gruesome brain melding with cult leader Luke, but it ends in both of their faces being melted off, so draw?

As you probably can guess by the fact that this is the fifth installment and third straight-to-video Children of the Corn, Fields of Terror is not a particularly good movie. But remember folks, we're in a different realm here, and standards must instead be held to whether this is a good Children of the Corn direct-to-video sequel.

Good? What is good? Who can say. 

Fun? Did I have fun? Yes damnit, I did. 

The soap operatic soundtrack anytime a character got thoughtful. The way children narrowing their eyes was all you need to establish their homicidal nature. Wondering if seeing David Carradine sitting in a chair, delivering some word salad testament is what made Quentin Tarantino say, "that's my (Kill) Bill!" Director Ethan Wiley probably made a better movie with House II: The Second Story, but you know what? This is the film of his that I'll watch again.

High Points

It was a nice "that makes sense" moment to see Kane Hodder's name pop up in the credits as Stunt Coordinator, since a lot of the actual violence and horror elements work decently for, you know, the third straight-to-video installment of a never-great franchise

Low Points

Most of the Children of the Corn movies live and die on the creepiness of their primary young villain. Think of the strange unearthliness of John Franklin's Isaac or the soulless eyes of Courtney Gains' Malachi. Unfortunately, young Adam Wiley just doesn't have the evil spark you want here. Could I buy him as the kind of kid who would tuck his chewing gum under a desk or place a whoopie cushion on his teacher's chair? Sure. Do I believe he could lead a cult of homicidal minors? Sadly not.

Lessons Learned

Don't get your hopes up: you won't find a 7/11 at the end of the world

The definition of "a couple of beers" can mean half of one

Before you leave your grandchild in the arms of his new adopted mother, maybe make sure she knows how to support his infant head?

Rent/Bury/Buy

Should one invest any effort in securing and watching Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror? No, I'm not cruel enough to suggest such things. But if one happened to buy a four-pack Blu Ray that has this one on it, and 90 minutes to kill whilst laying out this week's grocery list and catching up on crossword puzzles, then yes, this here is certainly a decent way to pass more time.

Groot Who Walks Behind the Rows

There are essays and encyclopedias to be written about the endless funnel of Children of the Corn movies (and how much that franchise aligns with Hellraiser). The amount of diehard horror fans I've seen vow to marathon the series only to fizzle out midway through could, well, fill a cornfield I suppose. 

Still, whenever one emerges every few years, it's hard not to get just a little bit excited that FINALLY, someone got it right. There's so much potential in the material and yet there's just never been a genuinely good movie to come out of it. Could this be the day that changes?

Grown-up Nelson Muntz thinks not

Quick Plot: Teenager Boydd emerges from the cornfield outside his children's home, armed with a knife and ready to slay the adults inside. The idiotic local law enforcement decides the best way to handle a hostage situation is to fill the interior with gas, which has the unfortunate effect of killing the 15 kids that were resting peacefully inside.

The town of Rylstone doesn't react well. Stores close, neighbors fight, and the corn, which had been treated with commercial grade fertilizer from a bad corporate deal, is now essentially poison. The town is offered a hail mary in the form of a government subsidy to destroy the fields, which appeals to the adults but upsets the kids at a scene in town hall that makes Parks & Recreation look like government at its finest.

Seriously, one townsperson begins laughing at a child in full Simpsons-bullying fashion, then announcing to the whole room that he's going to beat his son later that night. It's a sight to behold.

The minors of Rylstone voice their dissent. 17-year-old Bo, the voice of reason, tries to convince her dad not to go through with it, even going so far as to contact a reporter in the hopes that the publicity can save the town. But it's little Eden (the sole survivor of the opening massacre) who has the real plan, and if you've seen any of the dozen movies in this franchise, you can probably guess what (and who) it involves.

The twelfth installment in any franchise is going to feel familiar, and certainly Children of the Corn (the third film with that same TITLE in this franchise no less!) is going to have to dig to find anything fresh. And by golly, it does!

Now please understand: my definition of fresh doesn't necessarily mean good. It's sort of like how I love a good handful of stale, chewy popcorn. But in reverse.

Written and directed by Kurt Wimmer of Equilibrium and Ultraviolet back in 2020, Children of the Corn is...something. This is a franchise that so often has had to scramble at the eleventh hour to make a quick movie in order to maintain the rights, so it's refreshing to see this variation try some new things (even they mostly come off as very very silly). 

At the heart of Children of the Corn is the same deep motivation that springs the horrific Who Can Kill a Child? to life: the adult world has failed its youth, and at a certain point, the kids will fight back. There's an environment argument thrown in here as well, as the leadership of Rylestone has literally polluted its children's future only to finally decide to destroy it outright. 

All of this sounds probably makes Children of the Corn sound much smarter than the final product is. Wonky CGI doesn't help, and the rushed one crazy night timeline has such a "that escalated quickly" energy about it that it's laughable to take the film too seriously.

All that being said, Wimmer finds some new ground to tread here, which is admirable 12 films into a franchise. 

Well, I THINK he finds new ground. Like most horror fans, I'm incapable of remembering half of the Children of the Corn films I've seen. But I'm a good 99% certain none of the others relied on the adorable friendship between a highly organized homicidal child with prime leadership skills and her giant Groot knockoff, so for that, I'm all in.

High Points

There is no Shirley Temple-sized Oscar gold enough to fully reward young Kate Moyer for the supreme Queen B ME3AN-esque energy she brings to the role of Eden. With her Rhoda Penmark braids and decisive girl boss energy, I can easily say that without hesitation, I'd join her environmental cult in a heartbeat

Low Points

I like the idea of seeing He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Until, you know, I do.

Lessons Learned

An undergraduate degree in microbiology isn't an eternity

So what if your town is lacking resources? So long as they stock pink child-sized gas masks, can you REALLY complain about the quality of living?

Gasoline works differently in the midwest

Rent/Bury/Buy

Telling you that you'll enjoy watching the 12th low budget installment of Children of the Corn is like saying, "just order the chicken fingers, they'll be fine." This is nowhere near a good movie, but I found it wildly entertaining. No, it doesn't boast a grand death-by-voodoo-whittling like Part 2, but if Naomi Watts and Eva Mendes can emerge from these movies with their careers, let's put all our chips in Kate Moyer's basket for her future stardom. That in itself is kind of worth it all.

Sega Cornesis--I mean, Children of the Corn: Genesis

I challenge anyone to find anyone who knows someone whose cousin’s neighbor’s ex-girlfriend knows someone that would call Children of the Corn the best horror franchise of all time. It just won’t happen, and I’ll bet Joplin’s laser pointer on that.

It’s not that the Gatlin series has the worst individual films in horror. Of the ones I’ve seen--which is almost hard to count since so many just blend into boredom--none really fall below the trashy fifth Friday the 13th or glorious ridiculousness of Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2. Perhaps that’s the whole problem with the series: for all its low budgetry and dark premise, it also doesn’t take any real risks.

The original film boasts some of the most disturbing moments of the 80s, mostly because I’m a sucker for kids’ crude crayon drawings and stabby teenagers. 

Part 2...well, we had evil corn and a pretty kickass runny nose death. 

The third installment--which I haven’t seen in years and can’t speak currently on--SEEMED to be quite fun, while after that, the slew of we’re-not-even-trying-to-rise-above-the-VHS-market last few films seem notable solely for the inclusion of random before-they-were-famous stars (Naomi Watts, Eva Mendes). Most recently, SyFy attempted a revamping of the series with the painfully shrill 2009 remake.

The strange thing about this is that in terms of potential, Children of the Corn is BUSTING. I know other horror buffs look down on killer kids, but a prepubescent wielding a knife feels as natural a combo to me as cheese on a pretzel (you know, like a Combo). 

And yet...and yet...there’s hardly anything special about the Children of the Corns. Save for the original’s Isaac and Malachi, nobody remembers the villains. The kids never hitched their pitchforks to outer space. Roseanne never stopped by for a cameo. But the series continues to pump out mediocre entry after mediocre entry, including today’s feature, Children of the Corn: Genesis.

Quick Plot: In 1973, a Vietnam vet returns home 20 miles away from the infamous Gatlin to find his entire town has been taken over by elementary schoolers. As he stares down a li’l killer, the man has some war flashbacks and turns his gun on himself, only to instead have a child hurl a doll at his face, fall out a window, and bring us to the opening credits.

I hope to someday have my life advance twenty years by having a doll thrown at my face.

Cut to present day, “somewhere in the desert of California,” where a married couple is stranded with car trouble and eager to become horror movie bait. Tim and the newly pregnant Allie do as you do in a horror movie and head to the nearest creepily isolated farmhouse, where they’re greeted with awkward aloofness by Billy Drago (always a sign that you’re in the wrong part of town when it comes to cinema) and his mail order Ukranian bride Helen. The hosts let the couple stay the night until a ride can take them to a garage in the morning, providing they follow THE VERY SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS of not snooping around where they shouldn’t.

Easy, right? Just go to sleep, wake up, go home, and regale your friends at the next dinner party with anecdotes of the time you almost got murdered in the desert of California. Use the car ride to think of all the embellishments you’ll add to the tale. Sure, there may be what mildly sounds like a child’s screams just around the outhouse, but considering you’re already freaked out by your situation and JUST WANT TO GET OUT OF IT, you should TOTALLY investigate after that goodnight pee, right?

So yeah, Allie gets caught by Billy Drago, who then explains--after Tim gets manhandled by Helen--that he ordered his mail order bride without knowing she was pregnant, then ended up with a demon seed who now lives in a shed behind the outhouse. Or something. There’s some telekinesis involved, a policeman getting snatched up by the sky like the Julianne Moore alien movie no one saw, marital bickering, a car crash that the Internet tells me is completely borrowed from the vaults of the Bad Boys 2 editing room, and a good 72 minutes in, the first appearance of a bonnet.

So clearly, Genesis is a slow film.

Yes, a Children of the Corn film is slow. It’s a good hour before we see any real violence and a good post-credits sequence before we figure out just what behind the rows is going on. On one hand, such a style is interesting for a series that generally sticks to a different kind of formula. Except on the other, it’s boring. So there’s that.

High Points

Though nobody’s gunning for an Oscar (or heck, Scream Award) the performances are more than decent across the boar--eh, corn field

Low Points

Slow motion can be used effectively. Slow motion is not used effectively in Children of the Corn: Genesis. Slow motion is also used ineffectively at least seven times in Children of the Corn: Genesis

Lessons Learned

If you're still in California, there simply HAS to be cars

Pregnant does not equal dying

It’s really hard to get sweet iced tea in LA (you have to special ask for it)

Creepy backwoods preacher men aren't particularly interested in your newfound decision to go vegan

After serving your duty in the military, you get discharged with your very own handgun

Rent/Bury/Buy

Children of the Corn: Genesis isn’t an awful film or by any means the worst in the series, but it’s a fairly dull one that I don’t need to revisit anytime soon. When it hits Instant Watch, it might make for an adequate 80 minute stream, though any further effort should be avoided. The DVD includes a fairly pretentious interview with writer/director Joel Soison, so there aren’t extras to bump it to a buy. Unless you indeed are that cousin’s boyfriend’s neighbor’s teacher’s dog walker’s sister’s bodyguard’s girlfriend who does indeed ADORE the series, I’d say wait to catch it on cable. Or just watch Drago mug in 7 Mummies instead.

Children of the Corny!

As you and your scarred ankles know, this here is the Official Month of the Vertically Challenged Villains. No party is complete without a crasher from Troma, especially when the suspicious party guest is a film distributed (rather than produced) by said studio of mixed results. Since kids are generally short, it seemed fitting to cram in some underage killers, here in the glorious land known as backwoods New Jersey.

Quick Plot: A father-son camping trip turns terribly wrong when Pops gets his foot stuck in a pesky bear trap, quickly derailing into lunacy as his son cracks open the last of their beans. 

Flash forward ten years, where a family is heading into the sticks of New Jersey to visit a grieving sheriff friend whose daughter vanished some years earlier. It seems the whole town has experienced regular child-napping, a tragedy that has fueled some rather intense religious fervor amongst the locals. As the sheriff and his pal John try to solve the mystery while battling obnoxious reporters and gruff hillbillies, the audience slowly discovers what’s behind the vanishings...and it’s kind of great.

I’m venturing into spoiler territory, though Beware! Children At Play is far more about HOW it unfolds than what its surprise actually is. John’s English professor wife catches on to some evidence that whoever is stealing the children is well-versed with Old English literature, namely, the epic poem Beowulf. Who would know such a random piece of university fodder, other than the son of an academic who went missing...10 YEARS EARLIER!

Can we all take a moment to appreciate the fact that is probably the one and only Troma film to ever make a valid reference to Beowulf? Personally, I think that’s kind of amazing. Especially when said film also includes this:

Turns out Glen, the son half of the pre-credits sequence, has been surviving in the woods, snatching up some playmates and initiating them into his own cult based primarily on the dying rantings of his educated dad. As a concept, I find that pretty fascinating but Beware! Children at Play doesn’t quite round out its SAT scores with strong execution.

An odd remnant of the mid‘80s, the film has a decent script and some wholly original ideas. Sure, it’s Children of the Corn on the east coast, but it’s fairly ambitious in exploiting everything from religious extremism to literary snobbery. On the other hand, most of the acting (save for Michael Robertson in the lead role) is simply not good at all, making it difficult to make any scare real or storyline stick.

As for the scares....well hm. Netflix classifies the film as a ‘horror-comedy,’ but it’s hard to be sure if that was director Mik Cribben’s original intention. The film is surprisingly smart for its pedigree, but so many of the laughs seem to come more from the low budget than crackling dialogue. There’s an interesting Pied Piper theme that could have been fleshed out a little more in place of some of the slower investigation scenes, but it doesn’t mean the film isn’t enjoyable. Much like how I felt about Stuart Gordon’s Stuck, it just doesn’t delve quite as deep as I’d have liked it to.

High Points

If you know anything about this film, it’s probably that Beware! Children At Play culminates in an extended ‘kill all children’ massacre that caused walkouts and indignation in 1989. These moments exist and are ruthless, tis true. But you know what else is true? The wonderful fact that even though 6 year olds are being stabbed with pitchforks and shot in the gut, you as the audience will be unable to not laugh your cute little bottom off. Taking the finale seriously is simply silly. As a comparison, imagine, if you will, that Ruggero Deodato edited Cannibal Holocaust by replacing his more infamous scenes with the gutting and slaughter of Cabbage Patch Kids and Pound Puppies. It’s the equivalent, and it’s wonderful

Low Points

The most used word in this film is ‘dearie,’ and I’m completely guessing that based on an extended murder scene in which a terrible actress calls her murderers ‘dearie’ about 987 times

Lessons Learned

They want cut-rate salvation in the boondockles!

A daughter who has to pee is a great ticket out of a dull conversation about your work

Barbie is an addiction and it seems one with no cure

English professors are incredibly snobbish when it comes to the occult

Rent/Bury/Buy

Though I didn’t love this film, I had a genuinely giggle-worthy time watching it. The twists are bizarre, the finale, hilarious, and the end product something funny, mean, and original. Not worth a huge investment, but one that easily merits a casual Instant Watch.