| To a film aficionado, the term �bad movie� can have several connotations. It can be used to describe a film that is horribly inept, yet is still a lot of fun to watch. Then there are films that are just plain bad without a shred of redeeming entertainment value. Many of today's over-produced mainstream offerings fall victim to this category despite technical perfection and name actors. It�s an undisputed fact of celluloid life that an entertaining exploitation film with a boom mike clearly visible in nine scenes out of ten will always be a superior viewing experience to any arse-numbingly dull blockbuster fizzer without a technical flaw in sight. Although bad ( as in genuinely bad) films usually polarise audience opinion, some films attract almost universal scorn. Children of the Corn is one of those rare unconditionally hated movies. A film despised by art house, mainstream, and exploitation film fans alike. The fact that this film is adapted from a Stephen King short story is noteworthy for several reasons. Firstly, there�s the very fact that the producers had the unenviable task of dragging an entire script out of a short story of around thirty pages in length. And although King has enjoyed a successful and eclectic literary career, film-wise no other author has inspired such a vast body of less than impressive feature films made by filmmakers who usually had no great affinity for the source material, and even less understanding of it. So Children of the Corn didn�t exactly spring forth from a thoroughbred film stable. Our story begins in the small rural town of Gatlin Nebraska. As you may well know, Nebraska is famous for its vast fields of corn� and not much else. But Gatlin is a little different to your average Bible belt town. The local Baptist church is waning in popularity with the youth of the quiet corn growing hamlet. But much to the relief of the decent God fearing folk of Gatlin, the little tykes haven�t forsaken their creator in favour of rap music and violent videogames. They�ve simply found a more charismatic spiritual leader in the form of a boy preacher by the name of Isaac. Isaac is a disturbing looking kid with a penchant for black clothing. Somehow he�s been able to gain the trust and respect of the under eighteen population of Gatlin despite his ridiculously effeminate voice, and the fact that he looks like an Amish reject from Witness. Isaac is basically a pre-pubescent version of Jim Jones. And like Jones, he�s garnered quite a following with his own twisted take on Christianity. Apart from dispensing with certain aspects of the Bible that conflict with his grandiose plans, the boy preacher has also forsaken his creator in favor of a pagan God who lurks between the rows of corn that surround Gatlin. �He Who Walks Behind the Rows� is an unimaginatively named malevolent force in the cornfields who has a bloodlust that can only be satiated with human sacrifice. A kind of corn kernel King Kong. Isaac begins holding pagan ceremonies in a clearing deep within the cornfields, and before long his flock become sufficiently brainwashed to carry out their God�s bidding. One night, �He Who Walks Behind the Rows� comes to Isaac in a dream, and tells the boy messiah that the children of Gatlin must rise against their parents. The next morning, the hordes of degenerate children conduct a wholesale slaughter of all the grownups in town. Malachai is Isaac�s right-hand man. A general of sorts for his children�s army. Malachai looks a lot like the evil twin brother of Rusty from National Lampoon�s European Vacation. He�s also a little unsure of himself. At times he�s a fearless crusader for his pagan god, and at other times he�s just a scared kid. Malachai leads an all out assault on Hansen�s Diner in the middle of town on Sunday morning. Many of the townsfolk are relaxing after a morning of church. The young waitress pours arsenic into the coffee machine, and hapless patrons get a little more of a rush than usual from their Sunday caffeine fix. As the men and women of Gatlin gag at their tables, Malachai and his invade the diner armed with knives, and all manner of farm tools. No one over eighteen escapes the isolated town that morning. Not even Officer Hodgkins. Malachai and the others capture the local lawman as he tries to quell the juvenile insurrection. The children have him crucified in the clearing as an offering to �He Who Walks Behind the Rows�. Gatlin becomes a ghost town, and inexplicably nobody ever wonders why the populace of an entire county simply vanished ( but perhaps I�m looking for plausibility where there isn�t any). Isaac and his flock live a deeply religious lifestyle that would have your average Branch Davidian green with envy. They spend their days working the cornfields, worshipping their god, and doing whatever Isaac commands. Actually, Isaac only enforces whatever rules and regulations that �He Who Walks Behind the Rows� has filled him in on in his dreams. Naturally Isaac�s supernatural boss hasn�t ordered him to help the other children with their chores. Every time one of the children turns nineteen, they are sacrificed in the cornfields to the bloodthirsty supernatural entity� and seem to be delighted by the fact. But every cult has to be discovered sooner or later. After three long years of living a Peter Pan existence, the young inhabitants of the ghost town are about to clash with the outside unbelievers. A doctor and his young wife (played by a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton) are on a collision course with Gatlin as they head for California. Isaac foresees the impending potential Armageddon with the help of a clairvoyant child. But outsiders aren�t his only problem. Much like other military leaders throughout history, Malachai is envious of Isaac�s power. He�ll do anything to become �He Who Walks Behind the Rows� main man in Gatlin. While it may not be the best Stephen King adaptation around, Children of the Corn certainly isn�t the worst. It�s full of atmosphere, and does explore some interesting themes. The film tends to have a decidedly atheist edge, which is most evident during several key examples of dialogue. �You�ve been listening to these holy rollers so long, it�s beginning to sound the same� the hero of the piece chides his juvenile tormentors as they surround him. We get the impression that the filmmakers want us to think that worshipping a corn god who demands human sacrifice isn�t that far removed from more conventional religions. It�s a puzzling position for a film to take considering its cringe-worthy (and not in a good way) finale . On one hand Children of the Corn tries to tell us that religion is nothing more than fanatical ballyhoo, and on the other hand it clearly shows us that �He Who Walks Behind the Rows� is a very real malevolent supernatural force. Which is basically why the film falls flat on its face during the third act. What begins to take shape as an effective cult parable negates itself when we discover that the pagan god is actually real. For better or worse, the children of Gatlin are worshipping a bona fide spirit. It�s this kind of indecisiveness that ultimately dooms a film that should have been devoid of such supernatural fireworks. Even still, this has some genuinely effective moments, great art direction, a lot of atmosphere (mainly due to that great art direction), and a detailed fictitious theological concept that adds much needed plausibility to an otherwise implausible scenario. This one is worth giving another chance despite its many faults. Entertainment : 2 out of 4 Watchability : 3 out of 4 Overall : 2.5 out of 4 Reviewed by Blake |
| Children of the Corn |
| Directed by Fritz Kiersch (U.S.A. -1984) |