Children of the Corn
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| MPAA Rating | R (Restricted) | |
| Starring | Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong, | |
| Directed by | Fritz Kiersch | |
| Produced by | Donald P. Borchers, Earl A. Glick, Mark Lipson, Terrence Kirby | |
| Written by | George Goldsmith, Stephen King | |
| Released | April 10, 2001 | |
| Runtime | 92 minutes | |
| Country | United States | |
| Buy it from | Amazon.com on DVD | |
"Children of the Corn" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the March 1977 issue of Penthouse, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift. The story involves a couple's exploration of a strange town and their encounters with its denizens after their vacation is sidelined by a car accident. The story has been adapted into several films, spawning a horror feature film franchise beginning in 1984.
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The murder rate is as high as an elephant's eye in this flaccid adaptation of Stephen King's short story. While driving through Nebraska en route to a new job, medico Burt (Peter Horton) and his wife Vicky (a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton) nearly run over a mutilated boy who staggers from the cornfields. Seeking help, they enter the town of Gatlin, whose under-20 residents have butchered their parents per the decree of junior-grade holy roller Isaac (John Franklin), who preaches the word of a being called "He Who Walks Behind the Rows." King's original story (from his 1978 collection Night Shift) was a lean and brutal mélange of Southern-gothic atmosphere and E.C. Comics-style gore, which scripter Greg Goldsmith effectively neutralizes by adding a youthful narrator (a grating Robbie Kiger) and putting an upbeat spin on the story's morbid conclusion. Fritz Kiersch's direction is TV-movie flat, with the sole inspired moment (hideous religious iconography glimpsed during a bloody "service") delivered as a throwaway. Aside from Horton and Courtney Gains (as Isaac's hatchet man Malachai), the performances are dreadful, and the depiction of the Lovecraftian monster-god as a sort of giant gopher inspires more laughter than terror. Amazingly, the film spawned six sequels; Franklin (Cousin Itt in the Addams Family films) later appeared in and wrote 1999's Children of the Corn 666.
--Paul Gaita
== Screenies from the "Children of the Corn"
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