Children of the Corn (1984)

Director: Fritz Kiersch

Starring: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong, John Franklin & Courtney Gains

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: An adult nightmare.

Plot: A young couple wander into a mid-western town where all the adults are apparently dead and the children participate in a cult that worships a malevolent force in the corn fields. Based on a Stephen King novella.

My Rating: 4.5/10

Would I watch it again? Not only NO, but fuck the sequels as well.

#165 on Drive-In Delirium Volume 2 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

Hmmmm...where to start? CotC is missing something and I'm not sure what it is except that that 'something' would have held my attention. I loved the opening with the kids killing all of the adults. Nice! Killer kids is usually good for some unsettling fun...usually.


It was fun seeing Hamilton in an early performance (the same year as THE TERMINATOR). I could just imagine James Cameron, her future psycho husband, standing off camera impatiently waiting to kick Horton's ass after their smooch scene.


R.G. Armstrong is great, as always. I'm not sure why he had to die. Maybe it's explained better in the book. So did Malachai just have a wild hair up his ass and want him dead? Beats me and who cares.


Gains looks creepy as all get out but he's not a good actor by any stretch of the imagination (at least in this film, his first).


I dug the MAN who played the lead kid, Issac. I say man because the dude was 24 playing a 14 year old. IMDB says he quit acting the very next year to start teaching high school. Great, creepy performance.


Can someone PLEASE find better ways to avoid amazingly obvious foreshadowing? JESUS FUCK!

Do ya think this is going to play an important role somewhere down the line?

Yep!

I didn't care for Jonathan Elias's score at all. I can do without the electronic-y rock score. Just dreadfully banal. And that epilogue after the cornfield has been destroyed, where everyone is SUDDENLY full of smiles and levity? Yeah, I get that you just went through an ordeal of death and shit but really? It's as if none of the last 85 minutes happened. Whatever. It's insulting. But then again, this is a movie about killer corn kids.

I suppose it wouldn't have been nearly as bad if people didn't do such completely stupid things in this movie. When people yell at the screen, "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?" and "HOW FUCKING STUPID ARE YOU?" there's a problem somewhere. I can excuse a lapse in judgement but for most of the movie? That not only applies to the characters' actions but to the film makers as well.