Children of the Corn Review: A Rotted Husk of a Horror Remake
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The post Children of the Corn Review: A Rotted Husk of a Horror Remake appeared first on Consequence.
The Pitch: Kurt Wimmer’s 2023 entry in the long-running Children of the Corn franchise, the eleventh(!!) film in a series that started as a straightforward, modestly tense adaptation of a Stephen King short story before spinning further and further into direct-to-video oblivion, is less recent than you’d think. You see, Wimmer’s version was actually shot before the pandemic and released in 2020 to a few test audiences in Sarasota, Florida as a seasonal Halloween treat. Then it was promptly shelved until it could enjoy a brief theatrical window and prompt offloading to Shudder.
Watching Children of the Corn (2020/2023) now, it’s no wonder they were shy about putting this thing in front of an audience: Even within the auspices of a not-terribly-inspiring horror franchise, Wimmer’s take is a dull, repetitive, meaningless slog that carries only superficial similarities to the very story that shares its title.
There’s the rundown town in rural Nebraska, the coterie of craven kiddies who take the town for themselves, the whispered commands from a mysterious entity in the cornfields. That’s about it. Ostensibly, it’s a sorta-prequel to the original film, depicting a massacre at an orphanage that leaves many kids dead, save for little Eden (The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Kate Moyer), emotionally scarred from the experience and hearing voices from…. something out in the cornfield.
Also, the crops are dying due to the adults’ complacency, with no new world for their children to inherit. It’s the kind of thing that’ll make you gather your fellow tots and go on a murderous rampage against all the grownups in the town, with only a spunky 17-year-old activist named Bo (Elena Kampouris) to stop you.
Field of Screams: Apart from that opening sequence, which is decently harrowing in a mid-aughts Texas Chainsaw kind of way, there’s very little about Wimmer’s take on the material that inspires much beyond boredom and the occasional unintentional giggle. The script is a mess, grasping at some intermittent social commentary it can’t successfully commit to: rather than the cosmic horror of the King version, this take is all about GMOs killing the crops and the feuding factions who want to either keep the corn alive or burn it down so the dying town can get those delicious government subsidies.
The first half of the film is all about this provincial conflict, scene after scene of actors braving some of the clunkiest expository dialogue uttered in a film this decade (poor Callan Mulvey and Bruce Spense are particularly wasted as Bo’s dad and the town preacher, respectively) in town halls and cornfields.
Children of the Corn (RLJ Entertainment)
Bo, in particular, speaks in overwrought, overacted monologue, spouting phrases no honest-to-God human would ever imagine (“Toxins grow on the seeds of rotting crops!”); some of her other pre-rampage plans are so preposterous you’d be forgiven for not realizing she’s supposed to be the hero.
The supporting cast gets lost in the rows, too; a subplot about Bo’s adulterous mother comes and goes with little to show for it, more exciting massacre sequences happen seemingly off-screen, and other characters teased as major players (Bo’s brother, an out-of-town reporter Bo calls to come report on what’s going on) are summarily executed. What’s left is a bunch of long scenes of children walking down dirt roads or standing in formation, killing time in between a frustratingly small number of satisfying kills.
Then there’s the presentation of the whole thing, with Andrew Rowlands’ cinematography a washed-out piss-yellow affair cut to ribbons by the film’s haphazard editing team. Scenes linger too long or feel superfluous; jump scares dissipate, then pop out too late to be effective.
Worse still are the visual effects, which grow to Birdemic-level sloppiness by the time we glimpse what may be walking behind the rows of corn littering those country roads. It’s genuinely galling to behold, the kind of work that wouldn’t pass muster a decade ago, even in the most modestly-budgeted DTV dreck.
Children of the Corn (RLJ Entertainment)
Aw, Shucks: If there’s any saving grace to this take on Children of the Corn, it’s Moyer’s deeply uncanny stage presence. Her sassy, vindictive Eden, with her farm dresses and beyond-her-years wit, feels like Human M3gan; it’s a suitably bizarre choice for a horror movie, though Wimmer and co. don’t convincingly convey how she’s managed to get the buy-in of all the kids around her.
In a cast otherwise completely adrift, Moyer at least puts on an invigorating show, relishing her bag-girl cracks with all the verve of a drag queen stepping into the library for a nice old read. Her whole deal as a character still makes zero sense, but at least she’s having a blast, and that can provide an oasis of respite among a desert of decidedly un-scary filmmaking. She doesn’t fit for this story, but go ahead and throw her in a M3GAN sequel after the robotic slayer finally saves enough for a flesh-and-blood body. She’s already aced the audition.
The Verdict: Sure, it’s hard for any horror franchise to maintain any kind of momentum after 11 entries. Lord knows Children of the Corn, a series with maybe one half-decent installment, is no exception. But there’s something particularly galling about the laziness of this one — its flimsy gestures toward topicality, the piecemeal nature of the whole thing — that makes its failures acutely horrifying. Wimmer’s track record is as spotty as it is infrequent — he hasn’t directed a film since 2006’s execrable Ultraviolet. If his work here is any indicator, I’ll be happy to wait another 17 years before I have to see another.
Where’s It Playing? Children of the Corn stalks its way to theaters on March 3rd, before heading to Shudder beginning March 21st.
Trailer:
Children of the Corn Review: A Rotted Husk of a Horror Remake
Clint Worthington
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