Children of the Corn: Part 1 to 7 to 1

"Never work with animals or children." -- W.C. Fields

Note: No Spoilers

Over the past couple weeks, I've had the pleasure of watching the entire Children of the Corn series. I own the original, but never did get around to watching the rest until recently. After excitement and disgust with the series, I decided to share my thoughts.

The series started off very well, and I continually had high hopes for each sequel, as each one got worse and worse (with a few exceptions). Before going into detail, I'll summarize by saying that the supernatural progresses in each movie, trying to out-do its predecessors. There are a few budding starlets to be found, and the potential for a great world that was never tapped into.

Children of the Corn (1984)

The film that started it all. Originally a short story by Stephen King, It was sufficiently creepy, with out all the needless gore and cheap scares. The movie opens up with the children in a small farm town, Gatlin Nebraska, who with eerie precision kill every adult in town at the same time.

From there we are transported a few years into the future when an adult couple (including Linda Hamilton, best known for her starring role in The Terminator) wander into town to find it deserted with the exception of the children. Now the couple must survive against religious fanatics, who worship "He Who Walks Behind The Rows."

Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice

Why it's called "The Final Sacrifice," I have yet to figure out. I'm pretty sure that despite some typical killing, there were no sacrifices, and certainly nothing that indicated one would be final.

Overall, I have to give the writer some credit to this movie. He did at least try to tie it to the original, even if the connections are loose. The story takes place in a town neighboring Gatlin, which was mentions a few times in the first movie.

I the original, the Children were commanded by "He Who Walks Behind The Rows" to kill the adults, because they were wicked. That's all the viewer needed. Some supernatural being, most likely evil, wants all the adults dead, and so it was. Come the sequel, and the motives have changed. Arguably, one could say they were better defined, but in reality they were just changed.

As made popular in Scream, horror movies tend to kill off those who have done wrong in society (drugs, alcohol, sex, anger, etc). Those who live are the innocents. It's a way of making it "OK" that someone died. Unlike the first movie, the sequel does this by making the adults of the town plot to harm lots of people through bad business practices. It also taps into the environmental concerns of the era.

Unfortunately, the creepy factor was replaced with blood and cheap scares. BOO a corpse on the screen! Girls in the theater scream, and boyfriends try to comfort them. Adults were not killed en masse, instead they were killed one by one, in a creatively graphic way, and only those who deserved to die.

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest
I gotta hand it to them, the subtitle of this sequel isn't so bad. While the idea of moving the background from a rural farm town to central Chicago worried me, I had high hopes for a densely populated city allowing for a ton of deaths.

The story tried to continue from the first two movies, in such a way that it can effectively ignore them. Two kids from a farm town are adopted out to a couple in Chicago. The environmentalism continues, as do the individual killings.

One of the high points in this movie is that it adds to the "Children" lore. This was the first movie in the series that really made me interested in the world beyond the film. It even ended in a way that could make for some really great sequels.

Unfortunately this movie was marred with a really bad fight scene with a CGI monster, and pretty much lacked any killing. You know a movie is bad, when the scariest scenes are flashbacks from the first two movies.

Another element that began to show its self more in this movie was the supernatural capabilities of the kids, not just He Who Walks Behind The Rows. Unfortunately, this brings up the question: If the kids could do this supernatural stuff, why didn't they do it in the first two movies.

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering

Who was gathering for what? I'm still not too sure, but it had Naomi Watts, so a few things could be forgiven in the grand scheme of things. In my opinion, this was one of the better sequels. It added to the lore, it had a creep factor, and it actually had a story beyond "kids kill adults."

It was a pity that the story was not continued from the cliff-hanger left in Urban Harvest. Instead, the writer opted to do a story that had no ties to the first 3 films. It was just some new farm town, where the cult popped up again. The scenes got bloodier, and the supernatural became more powerful. But it had Naomi Watts.

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror

The subtitles can be rather hit-and-miss. Fields of Terror is so generic... just like the movie. Ever see a horror where a bunch of teenagers are trapped in a spooky place and people get killed off one by one? Considering that's the plot of just about every generic horror, I'm guessing most people have. Just add Fields of Terror to the list.

For the most part, I can handle a generic horror story. After all, I do enjoy the Friday the 13th series, as well as the The Child's Play Series. What bothered me the most about this movie was the crazy decisions the teens would make. I would say they were out of character, but there were hardly any characters to begin with. Just traditional archetypes.

On the plus side, it had Eva Mendes.

Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return

Why do I keep kidding my self? After four sequels, each one worse than the last, why did I think this would be good? Isaac's Return had a lot of potential to be a good movie. It was written by and starred John Franklin, the actor who played Isaac in the first movie. John returns to reprise his roll.

Unfortunately, the movie screamed of John Franklin's desire to be known again. In the end, it wasn't even close to scary or creepy, it was just boring. What's worse is there were no children. It was just adults acting weird.

Children of the Corn: Revelation

If this were a stand alone movie, with out the taint of the Children of the Corn sequels, it could have been really good. Lots of creepy, some decent killing, and a mystery. If they just took the corn out of the movie, it would have been good.

Children of the Corn (2009)

This is a remake of the 1984 movie. I was really hoping for a neat new vision of the movie, updated for the modern era. As usual, the Children of the Corn movie disappointed. If I hadn't seen the 1984 version, I would have been so confused! And beyond that, the leading actors were totally unlikable.

Oddly enough, the most likable character was Malachai played by Daniel Newman. Unlike the first movie, where Malachai bothered me, this one was portrayed so well! With out giving anything away, I was say he was a very good Darth Vader type character.