The Children of the Corn (1984)

Believe it or not, I hadn't seen The Children of the Corn until this week. Weird, right? I feel like it's just one of those movies where you sort of wind up watching it (or one of its numerous sequels) on SyFy (or SciFi more likely, since I feel like they played it more frequently before they changed the name in 2009) when nothing else is on. But somehow I missed that mind-vacuum in favour of sleep or homework or taped episodes of The X-Files.

I decided to finally sit down and watch it at the urging of a friend, and I have to say, it's great. And by "great," I mean horrible. And by "horrible," I mean great. It's just one of those movies. While I doubt it's actually contributed too much to the horror genre, I still feel like it has a classic-y vibe (mostly because Stephen King wrote the book it's based on and because it perpetually reminds me of The Shining for no apparent reason).

Cast Highlights:

• Peter Horton (whom I could of sworn was on an episode of Murder, She Wrote, but apparently was not) as Burt
• Linda Hamilton (who was in an episode of Murder, She Wrote) AKA Sarah Motherfucking Connor  as Vicky
• Two cute kids as two cute "nonbeliever" children
• A bunch of creepy-ass children as creepy-ass children
• Some creepy man-child as Isaac
• Courtney Gains as Malachai AKA the most horrifying ginger you've ever seen in your life AKA The Fist.
• Some dog as the ever-adorable Sarge

Basic Summary:

This movie takes place in a very dated "present," when a small, hyper-religious town in Nebraska is overthrown by all but two child-residents, who all follow Isaac (the man-child) and believe in "He Who Walks behind the Corn" (often presumed to be either Satan or a satanic/demonic force, but this is never really explained within the context of the film; I haven't read the book). Somehow the children are able to grow and cook food and have lots of life skills without any adults teaching them how. After a while, a couple (Burt and Vicky) are traveling through town on their way to Burt's new residency or doctor job or something (he's supposed to be a doctor, but only when it's convenient or he's being pretentious) and they get pulled into all the silly nonsense in this town run by children. The children decide to kill the "outlanders" (aka Burt and Vicky), who have to save all of the kids from the evil (but really only end up saving two).

Notes:

For being an adaptation of a short story, this is pretty damn good. It does fine as a stand alone piece, save the seemingly erroneous beginning (which clues us in on the ending and is super-duper awkward). Usually written-media-to-film don't work out so well, but Stephen King seems to have some pretty translatable books and stories, eh? See: Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, Creep Show, Cujo, The Dead Zone, Stand by Me, Pet Sematary, It, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Storm of the Century, Hearts in Atlantis, and Secret Window, just to name a few. Something about his books just translates well to film. Or maybe it's just that he's written so damn much that some of them have to be decent. Honestly, I haven't read any Stephen King, so maybe that is a topic better explored by someone who has...

Some of the shots in this movie are kind of brilliant. But only kind of. The overall film quality is about average; nothing to write home about. But there are some really stand-out shots in there. It's like handing a five-year-old a camera and telling her to take pictures. Of course some of them are going to turn out okay. I should really give the director a bit more credit, because there's at least a handful of these, but they have this amateurish, clumsy feeling to them. They don't feel clean or polished, the composition just really winds up working. See:

 

The children acting in this movie aren't all that great but the adults can pull their own weight (I RHYMED!). The kid playing Isaac is actually kind of awesome. Only insomuch as he's ridiculous. And his voice is really crazy. 

In terms of the Bechdel Test, I'm not quite sure if this passes. You see, the Bechdel Test stipulates that there be two women in the movie, and that they have a conversation, and that that conversation not be about a man. Well this movie only has about two prominent women. One is killed in the beginning of the film. There are a lot of girls, though—children, that is. And Vicky and little Sarah (the adorable one) have conversations that aren't all about men (not being killed is kind of an important topic for Vicky). So I'm not exactly sure if this passes, but I'm going to go with an infirm "yes." That being said, Vicky is treated as a victim throughout most of the movie.

Other Highlights:

After watching this, I decided that Nebraska's bumper sticker should read, "Nebraska: Where Children Reign Supreme!" I'm starting a petition.

I also realized was that Stephen King really likes his little girl characters to a) be psychic in some capacity, b) draw things psychically, and c) listen to record players. I guess it was more normal for a young girl to listen to a record player in the mid-1980s than it was in his 2002 miniseries Rose Red. (If you haven't seen Rose Red, I'll write a review at some point. I'm not going to say "you should," because it's kind of hard to find).

We all know it wouldn't be an 80s horror movie without bad digital effects!!! This looks like it'd be more at home in a Lysol commercial than a movie about evil chillens.

But my favourite ridiculous part of this was when Burt, a medical student-doctor-thing, is completely unphased by the fact that someone he struck with his car "was already dead when he stumbled out into the road." I know nothing about medicine, but I can deduce that stumbling anywhere when you're already dead is at least a little bit IMPOSSIBLE! But Burt just keeps plugging along, trying to solve problems as though nothing strange or supernatural is going on in the town except that the roads all lead to the same place and everyone's hyper-religious. And the children. But that's totally normal, right, Burt?

Here's what's probably my favourite clip, featuring: Burt hearing voices ("remembering"),  dramatically kicking a door in, and accosting a small child; Isaac and Malachai fighting; Vicky with her Crown of Corns; and parts of cool shots shown above.  

Pay special attention to Isaac (the short, non-ginger one)'s voice, because I swear it sounds eerily similar to that of Nevel from iCarly (yes, I watch that show, but I'll never watch it the same again):

 

And probably the most innocuously disturbing part was when Burt first ran into Sarah, he said, in what I swear was the creepiest way possible (or maybe I just imagined it that way), "Are you here alone, Sarah." A line like that is typical horror fodder for some kind of violence, be it sexual or physical. And then a few scenes later, he accosts her (seen above) and now I'm just convinced he's a child molester.

Lastly, I need to warn all of the animal lovers that the soulless ginger of terror kills the only dog in the movie. It's senseless and horrible and thank god it's an off-screen death (unlike Invasion of the Blood Farmers, review coming eventually). RIP puppy! 

 

 

 

 

Rating:

Three hearts for not actually being that awesome, but being enjoyable enough. Would I watch it again? Maybe. Was it a classic? Kinda-sorta-not-really. Did it remind me of The Shining randomly and make me ache to watch it? Yes. Would anything ever make me ache to watch this? Probably not.

You should watch this movie if you like bad 80s horror, Stephen King, books by Stephen King, movies with creepy kids, or endings you can deduce faster than the characters. Additionally, I am going to suggest that all conservative Christians give this movie a watch, not because they'll like it, but because of some of Bert's sentiments, including, "any religion without love and compassion is false." Right? Still pertinent!

You shouldn't watch this movie if you don't like animals dying, you don't like scary movies (this isn't really scary at all, I only jumped once and that was more startled than scared, but most people who "don't like scary movies" have a low threshold for fright while most people who do enjoy horror are more tolerant), children frighten you to begin with, you have an aversion to the state of Nebraska, corn frightens you, you need visually stunning cinema and/or graphics, or you hate Stephen King (for whatever probably invalid reason).

TLDR:

Stephen King. Horrifying ginger. Children rule Nebraska. Sarah Connor not being hunted by a blood-thirsty, body-building abortionist from the future. Dead dog. Religion ruins everything. May or may not pass Bechdel Test. Bad graphics. Hit-or-miss cinematography. Three hearts.