bad/awesome flixxx review: Children of the Corn (1984)

"Make sacrifice unto Him! Bring Him the blood of the outlanders! "- Malachai

"And He Who Walks Behind The Rows did say, "I will send outlanders amongst you: a man and a woman. These outlanders will be unbelievers and profaners of the holy. But they will sorely test you, for they have great power, even greater than that of the Blue Man!"- Isaac

"Don't ever show up in my emergency room, buddy!- Burt

Alahoyus all. One of the creepiest flicks I remember watching when I was young, this one has it all right from the go. Blood splatters across a young boy's face as another instructs the children of the city to murder all the adults in town. And whose blood was it that adorned the kids face along with the remnants of milkshake on his little nose? Why his own father's of course. They murdered them all right after everyone got out of church. I've always distrusted religious people since watching this flick. Crazies are ten times scarier than monsters any day of the week in my book. Linda Hamilton, the creepy son from across the street in the Burb's, and a cast of shady looking youngsters in CHILDREN OF THE CORN!!



I had this jam on VHS growing up and recently rewatched it. It was never as insane as I imagine it couldve been, but nevertheless it was pretty fucked up flick for its time. The basic story is told by Job, whose parents are killed in the initial strike by the kids. Apparently 3 years prior, in the town of Gatlin, where everyone makes their bread from corn, the crops all failed. So everyone got really religious and started praying so that the harvest would be good next time around. So outta no where, this weird 9 year old kid preacher shows up and gets all the kids to come out to the cornfield with him and worship.



Once there, he hatches a plan to kill all of the adults in the whole town, except for this one dude who runs a gas station on the outskirts of town. So after church one day, they did it. Hacked them up, poisoned them, whatever. Killed em all and sacrificed them to this demon that lived in the cornfields called "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". Personally, if you told me there was a fucking demon that lived in the cornfields, there's no way you could get me to go out there and fucking pray. I might hide in town, and pray that the motherfucker stayed in the cornfields. Then basically, anyone who came through there for the next 3 years were sacrificed to the demon. The only 2 kids not in on the shit were Job, & his sister who were sick. She's also got the "sight" which is like the Shining i think. She sees visions that come true, and draws them with her crayons.



So, then one kid is like, this is bullshit, and he's trying to escape, but he who walks behind the rows says no way. This dude Burt and his wife Linda Hamilton are moving to Seattle so Burt can be a doctor. On the way they pass close to Gatlin and while looking at a map, plow into the kid who'd been set up in the middle of the road. They are like, Oh SHIT, and then they need to tell someone, instead of just leaving like anyone else probably wouldve done. They get all scooby doo trying to solve a mystery and then almost get killed themselves.





At some point Malachai is fed up with Isaac's fucking bullshit. So he puts Isaac up on the cross and kills him. Then Isaac comes back from the dead and kills Malachai. Burt figures out the blue man (who was just a cop) was trying to burn the crops, so he makes a molotov cocktail from the gasohol they have after trapping most of the kids in a barn. Somewhere in there they rescue Linda from off the cross, and then they blow the whole fucking farm up narrowly escaping He who walks behind the rows. Then this one chick is hiding in the car and tries to kill em, but Burt knocks her out. Then they walk 19 miles to the next town. I haven't seen any of the sequels, but they must be worthy a little bit, because they've made SIX of them! I'm not sure what happens next. I at least wanna watch the second one. So we'll see. I say watch it. The beginning is pretty rad, but the end isn't as sick as you want it to be.