Sunday, January 15, 2017

CHILDREN OF THE CORN Franchise Retrospective Part 4: Revelation, Remake, Genesis


CHILDREN OF THE CORN: REVELATIONS was the film of the 21st century and managed to hit a new low for the new millennium. This is a generic straight to video affair filled with every bad horror cliche you can think of and overflowing with CGI that looks like it straight from a Windows 98 program, especially during the climax when corn stalks begin sprouting up in the lobby of the apartment building. Holy hell is it awful. Awful pretty much sums up the whole production though as it barely ties back to the original film in any way.


The plot revolves around a woman going to visit her grandmother who ends up missing from her apartment that is soon to be condemned. The residents of the apartment building are being knocked off by these ghostly children who look like they have to sneeze throughout the entire time. The kids terrorize the woman for quarters to play Sega's House Of The Dead at the corner market. No, I'm not joking at all. Michael Ironside plays a priest and there's not much else to say about this one. Clocking in at only 82 minutes it should have been a breeze to sit through but instead I was struggling to make it until the end and checked how much time was left no less than three times.


It would be another 8 years before we were blessed with another film but this time it all went back to the beginning with a remake that Stephen King wanted nothing to do with. The man is not stupid. This film premiered on Syfy Channel on September 26, 2009 and I would be one of about 8 people to tune in. Why? Well I had nothing better to do I suppose. I'll be blunt with you dear reader, I'm not going back and watching this one again. I had every intention of watching it again but I can't bring myself to do it. I have to salvage some shred of sanity and self worth, especially since there's still another film to go. I was dreading this one because I vividly remember it being total shit. Are you surprised? It has a crappy cheap look, the acting was bad and if I remember correctly it was based a lot less in the supernatural and more around real life cults. It didn't help. Trash is trash.


2011 gave us the 9th and final (to date) entry in the franchise, CHILDREN OF THE CORN: GENESIS. This direct to video sequel from Dimension pictures was written and directed by Joel Soisson and is an absolute snoozer. Allie and Tim's car break down in the middle of the Californian desert and the only house around is owned by a man named Preacher (Billy Drago) and his Russian mail order bride wife. They allow Allie and Tim to stay the night until they can hitch a ride to town in the morning but overnight strange things start to happen when Allie discovers a young boy being chained up in the shed and some sort of sex dungeon in another out building. When they confront Preacher about it he gives them some religious mumbo jumbo about being from Gatlin so he knows about the powers of He Who Walks Behind The Rows and all of the same tired bullshit that these movies try to string together.


Eventually Allie and Tim die in a car crash on the highway after stealing a cop car to escape Preacher when the chains on a trailer carrying brand new cars break and one by one cars come flying off the back and into oncoming traffic. This was all at the hands of the evil boy in the shed and his new toy truck. The entire situation could have been avoided had Tim simply hit the fucking brakes and stopped following a trailer that has cars flying off the back instead of trying to avoid every single one at highway speeds. These assholes deserve everything they got. Allie survives the crash and is brought back to Preacher by one of his followers and is sent to the shed with the boy to seemingly give birth to another corn child without putting up a single ounce of fight.


Allie must have recently watched these movies and lost all fighting spirit and will much like I have because these movies are mentally draining. GENESIS at least looks like it was made with decent equipment and the acting is passable aside from Billy Drago just chewing up the scenery every chance he gets with a stupid scowl on his face that makes him look more like an unfortunate stroke victim but the movie is so fucking uneventful that I was hoping the giant dick monster from part 3 might pop up to save me from seeing another corn stalk doll being made. My time spent walking behind the rows has shown me one thing and it's a giant corn stalk shaped turd that this series makes up. The first film is decent, worth a watch perhaps but is nothing more than a bottom half Stephen King adaptation and part 2 may be mildly entertaining for how bad and cheesy it is but any sense of fun or entertainment is quickly stopped there and I certainly wouldn't consider recommending part 2 even though it's the second best movie in the franchise. In fact I suggest you steer clear of the whole damn thing. Forget these movies exist and don't waste your time with a bunch of bullshit movies that are boring, bad, void of any sort of passion. Oh yeah, there's an entire opening scene that has fuckall to do with the rest of the movie. So it's like 2 shitty movies in one! Winner winner!

Film Scores
CHILDREN OF THE CORN: REVELATION - 2/10
CHILDREN OF THE CORN (Remake) - 2/10
CHILDREN OF THE CORN: GENESIS - 2.5/10

Children Of The Corn Retrospective Part 1
Children Of The Corn Retrospective Part 2

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