Movies: Horror Movie Discussion

[shadow1]

Thought the opening scene of Children of the Corn was pretty good. Very creepy and sort of sets the tone. It is the scene in the restaurant that I am talking about. By the way, I have no idea why they don't kill the waitress who looks like she's 50 that partakes in the murders. Anyway, I agree the movie is slow, and a good start isn't followed by anything classic. Linda Hamilton made this right around the same time as Terminator. She is good in this movie. I do remember that she complains a bit to Peter Horton's character that he hasn't made a commitment to marry her yet. Then the kids show up and you know the rest.

I think the opening is pretty much the only scene with gore and blood to set up the children as evil. It's probably the most memorable scene in the movie, aside from the very end (imo). I think both Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton added some spunk to their characters, I just wish there was more there in terms of depth. Spoilers, I kinda hinted at it in my review, but you could remove both Hamilton/Horton and the events would pretty much play out the same. The main conflict was between the children (Isaac and Malachai), and it's not influenced at all by the protagonists. I thought that hurt the overall product given how much time we spend with Hamilton and Horton meandering around, and has made me wonder if the movie would work better as a short film. In my research, I found out there actually is a short film, and it predates this movie. It came out in 1983 and is called Disciples of the Crow. It's only 18 minutes and is on Youtube, so I may as well check it out at this point.

 

[shadow1]

Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001) - 2/10

A woman searching for her missing grandma is stalked by two mysterious children.

Claudette Mink stars as Jamie, a woman who travels to Omaha, Nebraska after her grandmother Hattie (Louise Grant) stops returning her calls. Jamie investigates her grandmother's apartment building, finding it run down and on the verge of being condemned, with the remaining tenants all receiving eviction notices. Hattie isn't in her apartment, so Jamie files a missing persons report with Detective Armbister (Kyle Cassie), who recommends Jamie stay at her grandma's apartment in case she returns home. However, while there Jamie finds herself being stalked by two creepy children (Jeffrey Ballard and Taylor Hobbs), as well as a mysterious man in black (Michael Ironside)...

Children of the Corn: Revelation was directed by Guy Magar and written by S.J. Smith. The seventh Children of the Corn movie and the fifth direct-to-video entry, Revelation was originally intended as a remake before eventually being adapted into another sequel. How does it fare?

It's bad... really bad. I knew I was in trouble once I saw this film's poster, and in even more trouble after a jarring opening scene that is followed by blurry opening credits where the sound is bizarrely mixed down so low that I thought I accidentally muted the video. Needless to say, five minutes into the movie I was extremely concerned.

However, the first 20 minutes actually weren't too bad. The set up and premise are sort of like a weird mix between Evil Dead Rise (2023) and Hellraiser: Deader (2005), with our protagonist Jamie traveling to a creepy apartment building intent on solving the mystery of her grandmother's disappearance. Jamie is a shallow character who I think is supposed to be a writer (she mentioned a deadline at one point, yet has no computer or writing materials), but at least her motivations are clear. Either way, we follow her as she investigates the nearby town... which is supposedly Omaha, but only contains a couple alleyways and a single convenience store. Let's just say it's the outskirts of Omaha, okay?

After a decent-ish opening act, the movie goes downhill like a runaway train. As Jamie investigates the boring mystery of her grandma's whereabouts (which the audience learns the answer to at least 30 minutes before she does - great mystery!), the miscellaneous apartment tenants are picked off. And let me tell you, these tenants are horrible: a drug dealer, an exotic dancer, a paranoid weapons collector, and a wheelchair bound man with Tourettes Syndrome. Most of these characters are played over-the-top (I'm not sure how else they could be played), but the movie tries to play things straight, which as you can imagine lowers the overall quality of the scenes. Speaking of low quality, most of the music in this film is public domain. There is some music credited - all to artist Steve Edwards - but for the most part the film only has generic incidental music. I think the opening credits were mixed so low because it was probably some random public domain song.

Revelation keeps trying to remind you this is supposed to be a Children of the Corn movie by including corn in bizarre ways; there are cornstalks outside the apartment, corn cobs are lobbed at characters a few times, someone bites into corn and there is blood inside, etc. This is such a weird tactic because the actual corn is a very small part of what this franchise is about. It would be like if they made a Friday the 13th sequel and kept trying to incorporate the weekday of Friday into the main events. And this on-the-nose usage of corn can't cover for the fact that this isn't really a Children of the Corn movie. The city of Gatlin and "He Who Walks Behind The Rows" get name dropped towards the end of the movie, but for the most part there is no series lore in this entry. The movie instead feels like (but isn't) a ghost story. For most of the run time there are only two children, one of whom looks like the I Like Turtles kid. Oh yeah, another 82 minute run time for this Children of the Corn sequel. In this case I'll call the movie mercifully short.

Maybe things would have been more tolerable if Children of the Corn: Revelation had upped the gore, but there's not much in this film. Most of the deaths are very tame, with the most extreme kill happening off camera. A lot of the deaths are flat out cheesy, with one character dying of a heart attack (I think?) and another being killed by rows of corn in their bathtub (a horrendously edited sequence). Adding insult to injury, the special effects are unacceptable and are probably the worst part of this movie. There's one death in the middle of the movie that involves a computer effect and is supposed to be sad, but is instead absolutely hilarious. Later on, we have moments with computer generated explosions and fire, as well as with CGI cornstalks rising from the ground. These effects look like they were done using early 2000's Windows Movie Maker, and so many of them occur in rapid succession during the film's climax that you can't look past them. The beginning of the film isn't great, but because of how awful the end of the movie is, this photo does Revelation more justice than any written review ever could:

Overall, Children of the Corn: Revelation is another horrible horror movie with the word "Revelation" in its title. Despite being made only two years after its predecessor, this film feels completely disconnected from the rest of the franchise and the most pointless overall. I think a lot of people would give this movie a "1", but in my opinion plenty of lower quality movies exist (i.e. 2014's Leprechaun: Origins). Either way, whether I rate it a "2" or a "1", the movie is trash and is comfortably the worst of the first seven Children of the Corn movies. I could not find any budget or earnings information for this direct-to-video sequel, but it's worth noting the Children of the Corn franchise went into a 10 year hiatus following this film.

 

[Osprey]

We may have misjudged shadow1. Horrible movies won't put him on life support. They seem to give him life.

 

[BostonBob]

We may have misjudged shadow1. Horrible movies won't put him on life support. They seem to give him life.

 

[shadow1]

Children of the Corn (2009) - 5/10

After an accident, a young couple searches for help in a town taken over by a cult of children.

David Anders and Kandyse McClure as Burt and Vicky, who in the mid-1970's are traveling through Nebraska. While driving down an isolated rural road, a young boy jumps out from the cornfields in front of their car. They head to the nearby city of Gatlin for help, but find it to be a ghost town, populated only by children in a demonic cult who murder anyone over the age of 18...

Children of the Corn was directed by Donald P. Borchers and written by Borchers and Stephen King. Borchers was a producer on the original 1984 film, but over time believed the film was not close enough to the original short story. Now in the director's chair, Borchers tried to involve author Stephen King in the creative process, but King declined. However, after Borchers sent him an early cut of the movie, King liked how close it was to his source material and agreed to being listed as a screenwriter. This was the first Children of the Corn movie made-for-TV, airing on the newly rebranded SyFy network. How does it fare?

It's mediocre....which for this series puts it in elite company! As Children of the Corn '09 more closely follows the novel than Corn '84, it means this time around Burt and Vicky are married. It also means they hate each other, and sequently we the audience hate them. Both characters are vile dirt, who are emotionally, physically, and verbally abusive to each other. The movie doesn't really say where they're headed (supposedly somewhere for a second honeymoon?), all we know is this marriage ended a long time ago.

Starting a movie by watching two characters you hate is never good, but the film peels back (some) layers of their relationship later on, and the characters become more tolerable when not actively abusing each other. Just like in the 1984 movie, Burt and Vicky spend a lot of time driving around, but this in this film their crumbling relationship at least makes the scenes in the car have more meat on the bone. No, I wouldn't say these two are the deepest characters ever, but there is more nuance given to them than Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton got.

On the flip side, the children in the "He Who Walks Behind The Rows" cult aren't quite as memorable as in the original film, but it's made up for because the events surrounding them are better. Even though this movie follows a lot of the same beats as the original film, the direction and pacing are both better, so the film doesn't drag nearly as much. Despite being a made-for-TV movie, Children of the Corn is a pretty gory movie and the children in this one are vicious, which creates a sense of unease.

That's not to say there aren't other problems. The 1984 movie is a donut film, with a decent beginning and ending but horrible second act. Children of the Corn '09 actually feels like the opposite, where the filmmakers figured out how to make an interesting second act, but at the cost of poor bookends. Being as vague as possible, I really liked the ending of the movie. However, the build up to that ending felt like a non-sensical fever dream that was devoid of tension, which made me start losing interest in what was going on (hey, at least it didn't make me fall asleep, am I right!?).

Overall, Children of the Corn '09 is an average TV movie. Though I wouldn't recommend anyone run out and watch it, in my opinion it's more consistently entertaining than the 1984 film. However, I think the 2-3 best scenes from that movie top anything you'll find in this one. Children of the Corn '09 had a $2M budget, but I could not find any earnings/viewership information. (Note: I watched the uncut version of Children of the Corn '09 for this review).

 

[Osprey]

Fun fact: None of the eleven Children of the Corn movies were filmed in Nebraska, where nearly all take place. I wonder why. The state missed out on a great tourism opportunity. "Come to Nebraska. Join a cult. No grown-ups. All the corn you can eat."

 

[CDJ]

The Strangers Chapter One


Clear money grab. It’s the first movie without the suspense that movie did incredibly well. It’s just mean-spirited. I didn’t walk out but I went into this movie blind without reading reviews, turned to the person I went with, said “this is a pile of shit”, and then immediately checked rotten tomatoes and saw 13%. Good to know that I know what I’m watching lmao

Movie is so drawn out and you can tell they were doing it because they only have so much story and they’re making 3 movies out of it. I’ll go watch the next one because I have a monthly pass for my local theater and don’t have to pay for the ticket but god damn.

2.8/10

 

[shadow1]

Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011) - 2/10

A couple broken down in rural California spends the night with a strange couple harboring a secret.

Kelen Coleman and Tim Rock star as Allie and Tim, an expecting couple who break down in a remote area of California. They seek help from the only people nearby, a strange Preacher (Billy Drago) and his much younger immigrant wife Oksana (Barbara Nedeljakova). Allie and Tim call a tow truck for help, but being that it's a Sunday wouldn't arrive for several hours and would cost an exorbitant price. The Preacher and Osanka allow the two to stay at their farmhouse, under the condition that they stay in the room after dark. However, the couple hear troubling noises during the night and go out to investigate...

Children of the Corn: Genesis was written and directed by Joel Soisson. The ninth Children of the Corn movie, Genesis was rushed into production after Dimension was on the verge of losing the series rights due to a 10 year production hiatus following 2001's Children of Corn: Revelation (2009's Children of the Corn was made by the SyFy Network). How does it fare?

Take a wild guess. Released under the "Dimension Extreme" label, Children of the Corn: Genesis came out the same year and had the same genesis/origin story (maintaining series rights) as the horrible Dimension "Extreme" movie Hellraiser: Revelations. To say I went into this movie with low expectations would be a severe understatement.

However, the opening scene wasn't too bad, though as you can probably tell from my rating things went downhill pretty quickly. In this painfully low budget movie, for the vast majority of the run time there are only four characters. Allie and Tim, our protagonists, are halfway decent; if nothing else, they at least have a bit of charisma. By comparison, the Preacher and Oksana are almost like caricatures, who are supposed to come off as creepy but instead come off as hokey.

In addition to the mixed bag characters, Children of the Corn: Genesis has fewer sets than Night of the Living Dead (1968). Preacher lives in a small, dilapidated farm house, of which we only see a handful of rooms. Otherwise, the movie is set outdoors, with the only visual contrast coming from the time of day it is (day or night). With all that in mind, the question is this: can the film overcome its limited means and get the audience invested in the story of Allie and Tim trying to find out what's going on with the Preacher and Oksana?

I can answer that question: no, no it does not. I used the word "pointless" during my review of Children of the Corn: Revelations (2001), and I regret that because Genesis may be the most pointless movie I've ever seen. Seriously, such little happens in this movie that it makes the plot of Revelations look like Inception (2010). After the initial set up, Genesis struggles to show the audience anything interesting, and mostly fills time with nonsensical exposition scenes. Adding insult to injury, Allie and Tim start making idiot plot decisions to keep the movie going, which removes any goodwill they built up with the audience early on. By the time the ending rolls around - an ending, by the way, that it so insanely random and divorced from the rest of the movie I don't even know if it's possible to spoil - you'll be completely uninvested.

What does any of this have to do with Children of the Corn? Not much. As mentioned, Genesis takes place in California, with a lone scene in Gatlin, Nebraska. The film tries to shoehorn in the series lore, but at the end of the day this movie feels pretty far removed from the Children of the Corn series. That's not necessarily a bad thing considering the overall low quality of the franchise, but Genesis just adds to that low quality and arguably lowers it further. Instead of being a lean-and-mean independent film that tries to do its own thing, this movie feels like exactly what it is: something crapped out to keep the franchise rights. Though I would argue Children of Corn: Revelation is a worse movie in a conventional sense, Genesis is a bigger waste of time.

Overall, Children of the Corn: Genesis is another bad Children of the Corn movie. I accidentally watched this movie over a week ago, prior to watching the 2009 SyFy remake as I didn't realize it existed. However, nothing was lost being as that is a remake, and this has no ties to previous sequels (and barely any ties to the series lore). I could not find any budget or earnings information for Genesis, but it would not shock me at all if this thing's budget was like $200K. A sequel written by Soisson, Children of the Corn: Runaway, was released in 2018.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011) - 2/10

Just two to go!!! Hang in there!

 

[Neil Racki]

Me and my 12 yr old daughter bond over movies .. mostly horror movies.

Watched People Under the Stairs on Friday .. movie is a classic. She loved it. Didnt pickup on the dad implying being a rapey pedo when i watched it 30 years ago so when that slyly got introduced I had a minor heart attack. Thank god it was subtle

 

[Nakatomi]

White Settlers (also called The Blood Lands) from 2014 - 3/10

A very by-the-numbers home invasion flick. English couple finds a beat up old property in Scotland. Drives up to check it out. Much making fun of Scottish people ensues.

Just, completely predictable throughout. Not much to recommend in this one. It did absolutely nothing in a unique or impressive way.

 

[CDJ]

Tarot (2024)

A pile of dog shit but not as stinky of a pile of dog shit as The Strangers Chapter One. The dorky Hawaiian kid from the Tom Holland Spider-Man’s was the best part, he was miles ahead of his peers. It is watchable, it’s just dumb and specifically tailored to teenage tarot card readers and astrologists

3.0/10

 

[shadow1]

Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018) - 2/10

Two drifters wind up in small town, believing they're being followed.

Marci Miller and Jake Ryan Scott star as Ruth and Aaron, a mother and son who are drifters, surviving off doing odd jobs. Due to her traumatic youth where she was in a cult, Ruth has ensured her and her son stay off the grid. However, after her truck is repossessed, Ruth and Aaron have to hunker down in a small Oklahoma town, where Ruth gets a job at a body shop. Despite a new sense of stability, Ruth is worried she and Aaron are being followed...

Children of the Corn: Runaway was directed by John Gulager and written by Joel Siosson, who wrote and directed 2011's Children of the Corn: Genesis. Like that film, Children of the Corn: Runaway was - along with other Dimension property Hellraiser: Judgement (2018) - rushed into production to avoid losing the series rights. How does the 10th Children of the Corn movie fare?

Wow...I have a lot of to say about this movie. I knew I was in trouble going in because this thing doesn't even have a Wikipedia page(!?). I know technically I could start one, but it's pretty bad if your film is relying on some hack on a hockey forum to spread information about it.

With that aside, what is Children of the Corn: Runaway? It's a story about trauma and family. We don't know much about Ruth's background, but we do know that she escaped from the a cult once she got pregnant, and since then has dedicated her life to keeping her son Aaron hidden. She's a resourceful character who works grueling jobs from crap money, bouncing between motel rooms, all in the hopes of bettering Aaron's life.

Okay, we're off to a good start - we have an actual character; an extreme rarity for this series. Here's the problem: there have been many instances where I've questioned "what does any of this have to do with Children of the Corn?", and I can definitely ask that question again here. This movie makes me ask another question, though - can this actually be considered a horror movie?

That seems like a pretty important question to have clarification on. I can only think of a couple times anyone is even in danger, let alone the body count actually rising. There are a couple scenes which are obvious daydreams where we see people killed, but Ruth zoning out while sitting in a diner and imagining violence doesn't change this movie's genre for me. For the overwhelming majority of this extremely short 82 minute film, the premise is about Ruth securing and maintaining employment, and trying to get Aaron enrolled in the local school. It's clearly a drama movie.

And as a drama movie, Children of the Corn: Runaway is serviceable up to a point. I thought some of the performances were pretty good actually, especially considering this movie's vending machine budget (which it hides better than 2011's Genesis, for the record). But, no one is watching this film looking for a half-cooked drama. We're here for horror. And boy do we get it... in the last 10 minutes.

It's like a switch is flipped, and Children of the Corn: Runaway remembers what it's supposed to be, leading to one of the dumbest, nonsensical endings I've had the displeasure of watching. Part of it is predictable, but the part that's not is bewilderingly bad. At the risk of talking out of both sides of my mouth, this movie would've been way better off if it had just avoided horror all together. If Runaway had just stuck with the character driven drama about Ruth working towards a better life, this movie probably would've been a 4. The hard pivot to horror pretty much flushes the rest of the movie down the toilet, especially given how unsatisfying it is.

I'm really torn on this film's rating. Usually I'll be stuck between two scores that are next to each other, which is logical. But for Children of the Corn: Runaway, part of me wants to give it a "3" because aspects of it are a clear step up from some of the other shlock in this series. The other part of me wants to give it a "1" because of how absolutely atrocious the third act is. Ultimately you can see what I settled on.

I don't know why I even bother overthinking movies like this. I mentioned how Hellraiser: Judgement also came out in 2018, with the same genesis of keeping the series rights. Well, that movie I respect the hell out of. It is no doubt flawed, but director Gary J. Tunnicliffe - a longtime make-up artist on the series, who coincidentally worked on some of the Corn movies - had a clear passion for the material. He wrote, directed, and starred in Judgement, and gave us (at the time) the best Hellraiser movie in a long time. By comparison, Children of the Corn: Runaway is clearly some crap thrown together with a vague connection to the source material. Joel Siosson was probably writing a drama screenplay and reworked it into a Corn movie at the 11th hour. Also, not sure where to mention this, but I find it hilarious how this film has Predator (1987)-style end credits.

Overall, Children of the Corn: Runaway is a mediocre drama that turns into a terrible horror movie towards the end. What else can be said? I have no idea who the target audience for this movie is supposed to be, but it's not fans of horror or the Children of the Corn series. I could not find any earnings information for this direct-to-video film, but I'll go out on a limb and guess I'm the only person in the world who streamed it in 2024.

 

[Neil Racki]

The Babadook - I would have titled it "The Babadookie" .. even a genetically odd looking child couldnt save this horror film.

 

[trojansoilers]

Late Night With The Devil

Late Night with the Devil - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Had no idea this movie existed until I saw some reviews of it and got intrigued. Nice twist to the found footage genre, as it's in a late night talk show format.
I've seen David Dastmalchian in all sorts of roles from Marvel to Dune, but it's the first time I've seen him as a main character. Interesting premise and well executed.

4/5

 

[shadow1]

Children of the Corn (2020, 2023) - 4/10

A group of children besiege the adults in a small town.

Elena Kampouris stars as Boleyn, a soon-to-be college student who's grown up in the small farming community of Rylstone. The town's principle crop is corn, which is failing due to farmer negligence. The townsfolk, led by Boleyn's father Robert (Callan Mulvey), agree to take a government subsidy to stop growing corn themselves. This infuriates Eden (Kate Moyer), a young orphan. Eden organizes the town's children into a cult, overthrowing the town's adults to appease the supernatural entity "He Who Walks"...

Children of the Corn was written and directed by Kurt Wimmer. The 11th movie in the series, the film was shot during the Covid-19 lockdowns, being only able to do so because it was an independent film. However, Children of the Corn lay dormant for three years before receiving a limited theatrical run in 2023 and then being released on streaming service Shudder. How does it fare?

It's bad! But it's normal bad, not horrendously bad. The ratings on IMDB (3.7) and Letterboxd (1.7) may indicate otherwise, but I feel like this movie has extra scorn directed at it because it has more eyes on it (due to being a recent Shudder release). However, I acknowledge the possibility that I've watched so many of these Children of the Corn movies that I am losing my ability to determine how bad these movies actually are. You know that velocitation effect when you're going 70 on the Highway and after you exit you're going 40 and it feels like your car isn't moving? Like that. I don't think so though, let me explain why.

This Children of the Corn movie is a modern day reboot of the franchise. It's a prequel/reimagining, and supposedly takes place before anything happens in Gatlin. That's a new way to go about things, but I've got a couple problems with it. First, similar to Revelation (2001), the movie focuses way too much on the corn. The plot line about the government subsidy isn't engaging, and the movie spends a rock solid 30 minutes on it. I understand that it's the set-up to the film's later events, but that brings me to my next problem: motivation. The film makes it clear early on that "He Who Walks" (what happened to "Behind the Rows"?) is real, but then puts in extensive effort to give the children a reason to go after the adults (the corn). We don't need both, and it's way spookier to focus on the supernatural element.

Fortunately, the boring scenes in the film are partially saved by the performance of Kate Moyer. She is a really solid actress for such a young age, with subtle facial expressions and acting choices that really elevate the role. I don't even think she has great material to work with, especially with the filmmakers leaning so heavily into the "Alice in Wonderland" theme that I was having ptsd flashbacks to when I reviewed the Resident Evil series. Regardless, it's a shame that she - and some of the other child actors in these films for that matter - didn't wind up in a better movie.

And when Children of the Corn is bad, it's really bad. (4) minutes into the movie, there's a sheriff character who makes a idiotic decision, leading to the deaths of 15 innocent people. The film cuts to a scene of him sitting at a desk reading articles about it on his phone, and he says something like "this is going to hurt my re-election!" The reason I remember it being at the 4 minute mark was because I had to rewind it; I couldn't believe my ears. Hurt his re-election? This guy should be in jail! Just to be clear, this movie isn't campy at all, but somehow something like this ended up in it. There's another moment early on where the adults are maniacally laughing and taunting the children. It comes out of left field and is so over-the-top and on the nose it just screams "audience, you're not supposed to like these characters!"

I think my biggest problem is our protagonist, though. For most of the movie, Boleyn and a couple other older teenagers aren't in immediate danger, but are instead witness to Eden's mayhem. The movie makes a big deal out of Boleyn being an activist for keeping the corn in Rylstone, but in an actual crisis situation she takes no action. There are like 7-8 kids and four young adults, and the kids have mediocre weapons like baseball bats and sticks. For most of the movie I was sitting there asking myself "why don't they band together and overpower them?" It makes no sense. Later in the movie Boleyn tries to outsmart Eden and the kids, but does so in a way that makes it obvious she is not on their side. In one moment, they're about to kill someone and she shouts "no! uh... I mean yes!". It would've been way cooler if the children actually indoctrinated her to their cult, and the twist is that she's not pretending to be with them. The movie didn't even try to fake us out that it was a possibility.

Overall, Children of the Corn's latest entry is not great, but it's watchable. The production quality is a step up from recent entries, though it has that "made for TV" look to it. That's a little shocking considering this movie had a $10M budget, which legitimately may be more than the other 10 films combined (budgeting info is not available for all films, and two of them are likely in the $200-300K range based on what evidence is available). Children of the Corn earned $575K during its limited theatrical run.

---

And that wraps up the Children of the Corn series. Pretty freakin' bad. My ranking:

1. Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995) - Average movie elevated by superb gore
2. Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996) - Meh movie with some decent moments
3. Children of the Corn (2009) - Decent made-for-TV adaptation
4. Children of the Corn (1984) - zzZZzz...what? Sorry, I was just resting my eyes
5. Children of the Corn (2020) - Flawed, but this time with a budget!
6. Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999) - John Franklin is good, but the movie is very flawed
7. Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) - Creative camera work couldn't save this one
8. Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992) - I was probably too hard on this movie, but it's bad...so screw it
9. Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001) - So bad it's hilarious...yet somehow still not in the bottom-2
10. Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018) - Is this even a horror movie?
11. Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011) - One of the most pointless and soulless movies ever

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

And that wraps up the Children of the Corn series. Pretty freakin' bad. My ranking:

1. Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995) - Average movie elevated by superb gore
2. Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996) - Meh movie with some decent moments
3. Children of the Corn (2009) - Decent made-for-TV adaptation
4. Children of the Corn (1984) - zzZZzz...what? Sorry, I was just resting my eyes
5. Children of the Corn (2020) - Flawed, but this time with a budget!
6. Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999) - John Franklin is good, but the movie is very flawed
7. Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) - Creative camera work couldn't save this one
8. Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992) - I was probably too hard on this movie, but it's bad...so screw it
9. Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001) - So bad it's hilarious...yet somehow still not in the bottom-2
10. Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018) - Is this even a horror movie?
11. Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011) - One of the most pointless and soulless movies ever

Amazing work! Now please do Amityville

 

[Btlegend082]

Your torture is over i thoroughly enjoyed reading and cant wait to see what you have next

 

[shadow1]

Amazing work! Now please do Amityville

Sixty six movies!? And I don't even see the Shark one on there, which means that list is incomplete. Are you trying to kill me?

Your torture is over i thoroughly enjoyed reading and cant wait to see what you have next

Thank you!

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Amazing work! Now please do Amityville

Not going to research. Just going to assume these are real.

 

[CDJ]

In a Violent Nature

I thought yall north of the border did a good job with this one. A low budget Canadian horror movie taking place in the Ontario wilderness, this movie didn’t have a ton of dialogue and it moved along slowly- but not in a way that was off-putting. The payoffs were worth it, some absolutely insane over the top kills that bordered on humorous they were so over the top and violent. I thought the shots of wilderness throughout were beautiful, it immersed you in the movie. The movie is mostly shot
from the killers point of view. If you’re a conventional slasher fan you probably don’t like the ending, if you’re there because you’re a movie critic/lover then you would probably like it more. Probably explains the gap between critic and audience reviews.

Friday the 13th meets My Bloody Valentine kinda vibes, but directed by an artsy dude trying to do his own thing. I think he took a big swing and got on base. Not a homer but not a whiff either


6.7/10

 

[CDJ]

31 by Rob Zombie (2016)

it’s definitely a Rob Zombie movie. Was Haunt meets Hunger Games in a way. Just not as good as either of those movies. Not for the faint of heart

5.2/10

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

31 by Rob Zombie (2016)

it’s definitely a Rob Zombie movie. Was Haunt meets Hunger Games in a way. Just not as good as either of those movies. Not for the faint of heart

5.2/10

That's a good way to put it. Not up with his better stuff but still a fun movie.

I will say Richard Brake gives a very underrated performance

 

[shadow1]

Disciples of the Crow (1983) - 2/10

This 18 minute short was written and directed by John Woodward, and stars Gabriel Folse and Cleese Lester as Burt and Vicky. It was the very first adaptation of Stephen King's 1977 short story "Children of the Corn". How does it fare?

Pretty bad! After living and breathing the Children of the Corn series for the last several weeks, I've often thought how the original story might work better as a short film. Disciples of the Crow puts theory into practice, but is too short, however. The movie is well photographed, but there's little dialogue and is honestly a little hard to follow if you're not already familiar with the story. For something this short, the filmmakers really needed to spend their time wisely, but that doesn't happen here. The film instead splits its action between 1971 and 1983, first showing the children go bad and later the familiar Burt and Vicky story. In my opinion, in a format this short, the 1971 portion is pointless and waters down what little we get of the 1983 portion.

Overall, Disciples of the Crow feels more like a proof of concept than a fully formed short film. It establishes the setup and premise, and then ends abruptly on a cliffhanger. Oh yeah - this movie has animal cruelty in it, so that was just lovely. One final kick in the groin from this series.

Sharks of the Corn (2021) - 1/10

In rural Kentucky, great white sharks begin killing people in the town's cornfields.

Shannon Stockin stars as Schneider, a police chief in Druid Hills, Kentucky. After a string of local deaths, Schneider arrests Teddy Bo Lucas (Steve Guynn), a deranged man who is a member of a shark cult. However, Teddy Bo isn't the only killer stalking Druid Hills - a populous of great white sharks have become land bound and are swimming through the town's cornfield...

Sharks of the Corn, aka Steven Kang's Sharks of the Corn, was directed by Tim Ritter, and written by Ritter, Ron Bonk, and Steven Kang. The film is a part of the sharksploitation genre, and was featured in the 2023 Shudder documentary "Sharkspoiltation". How does it fare?

It's not lost on me that this movie is a parody, with its entertainment value coming from shockingly cheap effects, and its target audience being substance-fueled house parties. For crying out loud, the obviously fictitious "Steven Kang" is credited as writer ("an idea by"), and one of the performers is credited as "Ford Windstar". So to confirm, I know what this movie was going for. Furthermore, I will ignore that the movie's budget was possibly lower than this written review, was shot handheld (probably on a $150 Sony Handycam), and has unintentional production issues like (at times) out of sync audio.

Even with that low, low bar in mind, Sharks of the Corn is atrocious. In a movie called "Sharks of the Corn", you expect to see Sharks killing people in cornfields. And you do get a little of that. The first kill, which occurs five minutes into the movie, is actually really funny. After that, we don't get more shark action for another 40(!) minutes. Instead, we're "treated" to an insanely bloated story that has upwards of five plot threads. These include scenes about mobsters making an illegal deal; a serial killer in a shark cult; a sensationalist reporter looking for Bigfoot; a man wrongly accused of murder; and a police chief looking for her sister's killer. How I wrote a somewhat coherent synopsis at the start of this review is a minor miracle, as this movie mostly feels like a string of unrelated scenes frankensteined together.

For the most part these plot lines do eventually intersect, but by the time they do I can guarantee most of the audience is already checked out. We came for cheesy puppet and CGI sharks killing people in cornfields, but instead are subjected to 105 minutes of tedious unfunny nonsense. That's right - this bloody thing is dangerously close to being 2 hours long. In order for Sharks of the Corn to work, the jokes and shark sequences should be coming at the audience rapid fire, with brisk pacing. But the film instead invests all its time into the movie's slog of a plot, which is hilarious considering the movie is called "Sharks of the Corn".

Right when you start to feel your eyelids getting heavy, there are some more shark bits towards the end of the film. One scene is chuckle worthy, but overall there's nothing too good here. To be fair to the film, there are one or two payoffs tied to the convoluted mess of a plot that are somewhat interesting. But rest assured, nothing that happens in this film's final 10 minutes will get rid of the feeling that you've wasted your time.

Overall, Sharks of the Corn, aka Steven Kang's Sharks of the Corn, is coprolite. After a legitimately funny opening scene, the movie branches into several insanely boring plot lines while the "sharks in corn" premise take an extended back seat. I could not find much history about this movie, but it seems to have been filmed in early-mid 2020 due to mentioning the "Corona" virus (now commonly referred to as Covid-19) and other 2020-era topical comments ("white shark lives matters"). There were also a number of Seinfeld (1989-1998) references, which is ironic considering how unfunny this movie is. I could not find any budget or earnings information for Sharks of the Corn.

 

[Osprey]

You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel now. At least you got to fully exercise your rating system. Sharks of the Corn reminds me of ThanksKilling, which I watched last year and is about a fake-looking turkey killing rural townspeople. I gave that a 3/10, though. Often, I wonder if I'm too generous. I've given a 1/10 only once, and that was for Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. I like to save that score for the "What was I thinking even putting this on and not immediately turning it off" movies. Sharks of the Corn sounds like that kind of movie.