The Children of the Corn (1984)

#663 on Chris Goodwin's list. (https://www.instagram.com/top666horrormovies/) 

John Franklin as Isaac, high priest of 'He Who Walks Behind The Rows'.

A very long time ago, I read Stephen King's short story collection, Night Shift (1978). One of the stories was Children of the Corn. This tale of rural American religious weirdness with elements of the supernatural, really defined the term 'American Gothic' for me for a long time. Around the time that I read the story, a movie version was released, and I rented it on video. I remember thinking that it was a decent adaptation, but somehow lacked the full menace and fear that the story had given me. I wondered whether this was a general failing of movies over the printed word, or perhaps my imagination was just so much better than that of the filmmakers.

For a long time, the only thing that really kept Children of the Corn in my mind was the fact that an image from the final sequence of the movie featured on the inner sleeve of the Sonic Youth LP, EVOL (1986), which I had in heavy rotation through most of the late 80s and early 90s. This LP and its imagery helped cement CotC in my mind as a particularly American kind of horror. The name of the LP, which revealed the naive truth that 'LOVE' spelled backwards was 'EVOL' (Evil) sat well with the often simplistic world of horror movies and the peculiar kind of horror of the youthful villains and their harsh religion revealed. All in all, a pretty heady mix for a guy in his early twenties, fascinated by American horror writers like Stephen King, Robert E Howard, and H P Lovecraft.

inner sleeve of EVOL by Sonic Youth
on the right, Linda Hamilton and the skeleton of the town policeman.
I don't know where the image of the girl with the pitchfork comes from

Fast forward to now. A guy in his 50s, still thrilled by a good horror movie, and still fascinated by the bad ones. As you may have noticed from this blog, the bar I've set for what films I watch is so low, that it's basically resting on the ground, particularly where any kind of horror, crime or sci-fi movie is concerned. Seeing The Children of the Corn on Chris Goodwin's list brought back a lot of memories, but I hadn't rewatched the film since my first viewing in about 1985. Sadly, watching it again made me realise that sometimes we really can't go back.

"Sit down and watch the movie! I don't care what this jerk thinks about it!"

The story is very simple. A rural American town is the unwitting host to a strange creature of undetermined supernatural, probably demonic origin: "He Who Walks Behind The Rows". This creature has somehow infected the children of the town with an extreme case of extreme religious mania, so powerful that they are convinced that only children are without sin, and adults are evil. One day they kill all the adults in the town, and set about creating a society without blemish or wickedness. The cult is a mix of Christianity and an atavistic paganism that worships a Christ made of grass, who looks a lot like the 'green man' of folklore. It's obviously a big subject to tackle in a horror story, but King does a good job in his short tale. He isn't really known as a 'serious issues' writer, but you can tell that he has genuine concerns about fundamentalism and the bigotry and violence that can spring from it. In the 1970s and into the 1980s, the young in America were attacked for all their interests. Things like D&D, punk rock, 'satanic' metal music, and even kid's cartoons came under the hammer of the Moral Majority. King turned this upside down, and made children into the fire and brimstone that burned away the adults.

The leader of the cult is Isaac, a boy of about 12. In the movie, he is played by John Franklin, who would have been murdered along with the rest of the grown-ups, as he was 24 when the film was made, but anyway, he's the boss. Into this situation drives a young couple just heading through Nebraska on the way to Seattle. Vicky is played by Linda Hamilton, whose life would be changed that same year as she took on the role of Sarah Connor in the Terminator series, while Peter Horton plays Burt. Horton went onto greater fame too, as one of the leads in late 80s TV show, Thirtysomething, an everyday tale of adult angst among Philadelphia's yuppies.

"I have another movie coming out soon. Some kind of sci-fi, time travel thing. Fingers crossed it'll go places."

As Vicky and Burt drive past the fields, which should be sinister, but come off just looking like fields, they knock down a child who darts out of the corn. Sadly, this was a child trying to escape the town realising that getting older in this neighbourhood wasn't healthy. Driving into town they uncover all these spooky goings on concerning the kids and their religious cult, and all kinds of bad stuff ensues, as you'd expect.

Unfortunately, this movie really hasn't stood the test of time. It's quite possible that some of the 8 or 9 sequels or the 2009 remake may even be better, but I haven't seen any of them. The movie just doesn't take on the subject matter enough. It's like a TV movie, which is something many 80s horror suffers from. Things are too well-lit and flat, the actors are generally just average, and the images are not imaginatively framed, or dynamically directed by Fritz Kiersch. The whole thing is just too workmanlike. Kiersch hasn't directed many movies, and it seems that CotC was his first, so maybe that explains it. Not much of his other work is notable, although I do remember Tuff Turf (1985).

Definitely the scariest thing in this movie is Courtney Gains.

Courtney Gains as Malachi, chewing the scenery like a boss.

Kiersch also directed the movie version of everyone's favourite misogynistic fantasy/sci-fi series, Gor (1987), which has earned a hefty 3.5/10 on IMDb. His last movie, The Hunt, was in 2006 and is only his second horror movie after his 1984 debut. He has some standards though, as one of his films, Fatal Charm (1990) is credited to Alan Smithee.

Basically, as far as I'm concerned this is a reasonably executed dud. Anything good about it really belongs to Stephen King.