Hello Halloween month friends, it’s Slick Dungeon! I’m here to review the worst corn maze in history as we take a look at the adaptation of the Stephen King story Children of the Corn. Some people think it’s an overrated bad film with a dumb ending but others are convinced this is a cult film that will carry on to the future. Either way, there’s a whole franchise of these films now but I’m just going to be reviewing the first one. There will be spoilers in this review so if that offends thee, doff thy hat, take a seat, watch the movie and make your way past He Who Walks Behind the Rows, and read the review.

Children of the Corn Background

The film Children of the Corn is based off of a short story written by Stephen King. He also had first try at the screenplay but his version was rejected for one that would place more emphasis on violence than the character development of the protagonists.

The movie was directed by Fritz Kiersh and starred Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, John Franklin and Courtney Gaines.

The book and movie take place in a fictional town called Gatlin, Nebraska where the corn grows tall, the harvest is golden and the children are anything but sweet. How did an eerie story about some mysterious entity in a corn field gain notoriety and become a cult classic with eight sequels, two reboots and a short film? Let’s take a look at this one and find out!

Prayers for a Good Harvest

Gatlin, Nebraska has had a rough year. Despite its massive cornfields, the crops failed. Townsfolk turn to church and prayer to help out. But there is a child among them who has different ideas. While the whole small community is at church one day, nine year old Isaac Croner takes all but two of the children in the town out to the cornfield to have a talk with them. There are only two children who don’t make it to Isaac’s sermon. These kids are Job and Sarah. Job is not allowed to go because his father doesn’t trust Isaac and Sarah has a fever so she’s too ill to attend.

Isaac’s sermon must have been some convincing stuff because what happens next changes the town of Gatlin forever.

No one Was Expecting This

After Job and his father come out of church they go to the local diner. While there a boy named Malachi shows up and so do a few other kids. One of them closes and locks the door. Isaac is watching from outside and gives a nod to Malachi. And the children, except for Job and Sarah, kill almost all of the adults in town.

It’s a violent and bloody scene and it’s still disturbing to watch. It sets up for an interesting premise where a Lord of the Flies style event is happening because the children decided it should happen.

Time Passes and the Harvest Continues

Three years go by with these children running the town of Gatlin. I do think this is a far stretch of the imagination to think no one has noticed this situation outside of the town. Granted it is a small town but surely the people who died had some relatives outside of the area. It does seem the children tend to kill outsiders who try to interfere but I can’t fully believe no police intervention would have happened by this point. But let’s leave that aside as the story continues.

A married couple, Vicky and Burt are on their way to Seattle where Burt is going to his new job as a physician. Along the way they have to go through the town of Gatlin. In Gatlin a boy named Joseph is escaping and he says he’ll come back to help Job and Sarah. Job and Sarah are part of the community because they are children but they are scared of Isaac and Malachi. They don’t fully buy in to all of what the two cult leaders say.

Joseph is caught by Malachi on the way out. Malachi slits Joseph’s throat with a scythe and Joseph stumbles onto the road. This happens so fast that Burt doesn’t see Joseph in time and runs the boy over. Once Burt gets out of the car he can tell there is more to the story because the boy’s throat is slit in a way that couldn’t have happened from the car accident. From this point, things are about to get much worse for Vicky and Burt.

The Search for Help

Burt realizes they need to find a town where they can get some help. He loads Joseph’s body into his car but he also goes searching in the corn to see if he can see where the boy came from. He finds a bloody suitcase and grabs it. As he’s walking in the corn there are strange sounds. And Vicky is being watched by someone as she waits in the car. Presumably this is Malachi but it’s never quite revealed. And Burt makes it back to the car before anything worse happens. Vicky and Burt head out of there but they stop at a mechanic’s shop. The elderly man, Diehl, tells the couple they should go on to a bigger town than Gatlin to get help. He also gives them directions.

After the couple leave, Malachi shows up to question the old man. It turns out he made a bargain with these kids. Diehl gives them fuel in exchange for his own life. He says he didn’t help the couple in any way but Malachi kills him.

Children of the Corn

Despite getting directions, Vicky and Burt get lost because the kids have switched around all of the road signs. Ultimately they end up stuck in Gatlin and decide to take a look around the town. There is still evidence of the violence that occurred three years ago. As they are looking around some of the empty houses, they find Sarah and she explains the situation a bit. Burt goes off to explore some more while Vicky stays with Sarah.

Burt comes across the church and finds an odd ritual happening. A boy who is about to turn nineteen is carving a pentagram into himself with a knife and the other children drink his blood. Burt interrupts the scene but the kids are angry with him. Job finds Burt and helps him to escape.

Meanwhile, Malachi and his friends find Vicky and they take her to the cornfield and place her on a cross to be sacrificed.

He Who Walks Behind The Rows

Things get pretty bad here. Isaac gets angry with Malachi for killing Diehl. Malachi has a little in cult coup and decides in addition to Vicky and the boy from the church being sacrificed, Isaac will die as well.

How are all these people supposed to die? There’s some mysterious entity in the corn called “He Who Walks Behind the Rows.” Whatever this thing is, it’s malevolent and the children worship it.

Burt comes to rescue Vicky with some help from Job. Before he gets there, the boy from the church and Isaac are both forced to walk into the cornfield and the entity kills the two of them. The effects in this section really do not hold up well.

Isaac comes back from the dead, possessed by the entity and kills Malachi. But Burt does rescue Vicky. Together they and Job and Sarah figure out the way to stop this entity is to burn the cornfield. It takes a bit of trying and fighting against a huge storm but Burt soaks the corn field with gas and tosses a Molotov cocktail into the field which kills the entity.

The film ends with Burt and Vicky promising to look after Job and Sarah for at least a little while.

Children of the Corn in Conclusion

This movie, and even the story, takes a lot of suspension of disbelief. While the premise is truly interesting, the third act feels like a let down. The idea of a bunch of creepy kids in a cult who kill adults is certainly terrifying. But the execution of it, with this weird supernatural phenomena makes if feel a bit less intense than it could have.

I do enjoy the movie and I can see why it’s a cult classic. But, I just can’t fully get behind it. I’d love to see a story like this without the supernatural element and a bit more realism about how the town could stay so isolated for so long.

Somehow this film sparked a ton of sequels. None of them, except for the remake/reboot, have much to do with the original story. If you want a night of silly horror films that get progressively stranger, you can have quite a lot of fun watching these movies.

Out of all of them, I really only recommend this one for the casual viewer but I don’t consider it nearly one of the best of Stephen King films. There are worse ones though, and we’ll get to some of those in future reviews.

So, until next time may your corn grow high and your kids stay out of the cornfield!

Want More?

Want to see some of my other King reviews? Take a look here!

Looking for a good King read? Check out this one!

Do you love this movie or hate it? Let me know in the comments!

Harvestingly yours,

Slick Dungeon