Children of the Corn (1984)

Genre: Horror

Directed by: Fritz Kiersch

Starring: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton,  

Running time: 92 minutes

In this film, based on a short story written by Stephen King, the children of a fictional Nebraska town ritually kill all the adults under the power of a malevolent supernatural entity, so as to insure a successful corn harvest. A young doctor and his wife are driving through the area as they are heading to the physician’s new job. They will have to battle these possessed children if they ever want to hope to make it out of there alive.

I haven’t read the Stephen King story, or the screenplay he had written for the movie.  A different screenplay, written by George Goldsmith, and which put more focus on the violent aspect of the story, was preferred.

The end result though is a very cheesy and corny movie, filled with bad acting. Linda Hamilton, who was really efficient in The Terminator, is really awful here. Peter Horton is not much better. As for the children, they all come off as very fake and hammy.

Such a story could have been told so much more effectively, with a better backstory for the children and for that supernatural superpower, but the filmmakers seemed to want to rush right to the cheap thrills and violence. Problem is: None of those things were delivered in a thrilling way. It all just fell really flat. A real shame, because what could have been a great horror film ended up being a total waste of time.

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