Other Titles • Children of the Corn • Stephen King's Children of the Corn (1984) • Kinder des Zorns (1984) • Kukurièné deti
Synopses for Children of the Corn (1984)
1.
When a young couple find themselves stranded in the isolated community of Gatlin, Nebraska, they discover that all of the town's adults have been slaughtered by a religious cult of twisted children who worship a mysterious cornfield deity. Can these adults escape the fanatical wrath of these adolescent zealots, or will they become the next blood sacrifices to He Who Walks Behind The Rows?
Linda Hamilton (Terminator 2) and Peter Horton (Thirtysomehing) star in this ‘80s horror hit that spawned five shocking sequels!
(17 votes)
2.
Children Of The Corn (1984, 92 mins.) A young couple (Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton) find themselves stranded in the rural town of Gatlin, Nebraska and fall into the sinister hands of a mysterious religious sect of children. Having murdered all of the town's adults at the command of their leader Isaac, the children perform bloody sacrifices to their cornfield-dwelling deity, known only as "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," with their two new visitors next in line for crucifixion.
Creepshow 2 (1987, 89 mins.) Join our old friend, the rotting Creep himself, as he introduces this Stephen King horror anthology which presents gruesome looks at three tales of horror: a hit-and-run driver in "The Hitchhiker", a wooden Indian in "Ol' Chief Wooden Head", and four friends whose vacation on a secluded lake turns into a nightmare in "The Raft". "Creepshow 2" is a deliciously wicked roller coaster ride that will plunge you into the heart of darkness and to the very brink of madness.
Maximum Overdrive (1986, 98 mins.) When a mysterious comet passes close to Earth, machines everywhere suddenly take on murderous minds of their own in this twisted metal epic, the only film directed by Stephen King! Soon, video games, cash machines, drawbridges, and steamrollers all go on a psychotic killing spree of global rebellion. But when the Dixie Boy Truck Stop is held hostage by a mob of homicidal 18-wheelers, human vengeance goes into overdrive. Who made who? And who will survive the final showdown of man vs. bloodthirsty machine?
(17 votes)
3.
Young lovers on a cross-country trip stop in a small Nebraska community and make a shocking discovery. One day, three years prior to the couples' arrival, the town's children killed all of the grown-ups at the apparent behest of a demon simply dubbed "He Who Walks Behind the Rows." Based on a short story from horror scribe Stephen King's "Night Shift" collection, this film spawned a slew of bloody sequels.
(16 votes)
4.
Coming soon!
(17 votes)
5.
The murder rate is as high as an elephant's eye in Children of the Corn, a flaccid adaptation of Stephen King's short story. While driving through Nebraska en route to a new job, medico Burt (Peter Horton) and his wife Vicky (a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton) nearly run over a mutilated boy who staggers from the cornfields. Seeking help, they enter the town of Gatlin, whose under-20 residents have butchered their parents per the decree of junior-grade holy-roller Isaac (John Franklin), who preaches the word of a being called "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". King's original story (from his 1978 collection Night Shift) was a lean and brutal mélange of Southern-Gothic atmosphere and EC Comics-style gore, which scripter Greg Goldsmith effectively neutralises by adding a youthful narrator (a grating Robbie Kiger) and putting an upbeat spin on the story's morbid conclusion. Fritz Kiersch's direction is TV-movie flat, with the sole inspired moment (hideous religious iconography glimpsed during a bloody "service") delivered as a throwaway. Aside from Horton and Courtney Gains (as Isaac's hatchet man Malachai), the performances are dreadful. The depiction of the monster-God as a sort of giant gopher inspires more laughter than terror. Amazingly, the film spawned six sequels; Franklin (Cousin It in the Addams Family films) later appeared in and wrote 1999's Children of the Corn 666.--Paul Gaita, Amazon.com
(16 votes)
6.
A box set that assembles the first three entries (of six, so far) in the Stephen King-derived minor horror franchise, Children of the Corn: The Collector's Edition puts three not-really-very-good horror pictures together into a fairly satisfying junk food platter than works okay as a demented four-and-a-half-hour miniseries. In the 1984 original, Linda Hamilton and her dead-loss husband are stranded in Gatlin, a small town in Nebraska where the children have formed a cult around the mysterious "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" and slaughtered all the adults. It has a certain creepy atmosphere in the early sections, but degenerates into a pointless run-around, with characters doing silly things that get them into further peril.
Strangely, the sequels play better. In the 1992 The Final Sacrifice, a journo and his estranged son show up to delve into the Gatlin story, and one of the surviving cultists reorganises the gruesome business, with a few special effects hints that give a bit more form to the monster villain. And the 1994 Urban Harvest has another Gatlin kid adopted by a Chicago commodities broker and raising a patch of sinister corn in a backlot; this has a no-name cast and the usual dumb script, but make-up man Screaming Mad George stages some impressively gruesome stuff with a killer scarecrow and murderous cornstalks before finally bringing "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" on-screen as a Thing-ish vegetable monster whose rampage provides this set with something like a big finish. Incredibly, there are three more Corn sequels out there, presumably saved for a follow-up collection.
On the DVD:Children of the Corn: The Collector's Edition's first film is in 16:9 anamorphic, though the original elements aren't in pristine condition and the soundtrack is mono; the 4:3 full screen sequels look sharper and have stereo to show off the Omen-like chanting scores. The only extras are "theatrical trailers", though parts two and three almost certainly didn't play in any theatres. --Kim Newman
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