Children of the Corn
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“The Children of the Corn,” by Stephen King
Burt and Vicky aren’t having the best time of things. The cross country drive to save their marriage is instead putting the final nails in the coffin, and there’s no way to get a drive-thru divorce. There are worse things than marital discord, however, and they’re about to come face to face with them, when Burt accidentally hits a boy in the road. A boy who had his throat-cut before he was anywhere near the car…
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Children of the Corn, directed by Fritz Kiersch
Gaitlin used to be a normal small town; people were good to each other, tended their fields, and went to church on Sundays. Until Isaac arrived. He decided some changes had to be made. The unbelievers- the adults- had to be eliminated. So he got all his fellow children together, and the work was done. Life attained a new status quo, begin Isaac’s hellfire and brimstone and the occasional sacrifices to He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Only someone new is coming to town- two someones, in fact. And they bring changes…
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How the hell did this happen? How did such a middling little movie, based on a halfway okay horror story, spawn, what, six sequels? Seven? And with no end in sight. There seems to be a vast mythology here just waiting to be explored, a fathomless undercurrent running through the national imagination that hungers for more images and half-baked backstories of children and corn. Maybe it’s something in the collective unconscious, a deep seated need for blank-faced, murderous rugrats to continue there never ending push across video shelves the country wide- perhaps this is what holds us together, in the end. Perhaps, after Vietnam, this is what made us whole.
Seriously though, six sequels? Are people really this dumb? “Well, honey, the first four sucked, but I’ve got a real good feeling about this fifth one. The box says it’ll be the ultimate battle between good and evil and hell, you know how I’m a sucker for that.” I realize that name recognition carries a lot of weight, but this is absurd. It’s like there are legions of Blockbuster patrons out there who can’t make new memories.
Originally published in the March, 1977 issue of Penthouse magazine, “Children of the Corn” was eventually anthologized in Stephen King’s first major short story collection, Night Shift. Seeing as how I didn’t exist in 1977 and still haven’t completed my set of nudie magazines from that year, I first came across the story in the book, alongside any number of early King classics like “Trucks,” “Sometimes They Come Back,” and the deeply creepy, “The Boogeyman.” Many of the stories in the collection gave me a serious freak-out, but if I remember correctly, “CotC” (as it shall be henceforth known) did not, although there was the usual nasty buzz of seeing unpleasant things happen to mildly unlikable characters.
The plot is simple- so simple, in fact, that it’s became a sort of template for future King stories, reaching its ultimate apotheosis in the opening chapter of Desperation. A married couple, generally somewhere in the area between young and middle-aged, are driving down unfamiliar roads in an apparently unpopulated area of the country. They manage, through no real fault of their own, to stumble across something nasty, and then after about five to ten pages of suspense, they die horribly, and then there’s a stinger to send you home.
The protagonists in this template don’t always get along, and in the case of “CotC,” they actively loathe one another. Burt thinks Vicky is an emasculating bitch. Vicky thinks Burt is a good for nothing asshole. We get bickering that reads an Albee play for a while; although the story is told through Burt’s perspective, King is good enough to let us know that he’s not entirely blameless in the marital discord. Although damn, I would not want to be on a long car ride with Vicky.
It’s interesting to note just how uncomfortable the opening scene is- in its way, it’s just as disturbing as the literal horrors which are to come. This is not something that happens by accident, I think; or if it is, King himself picked up on it, as he eventually explored the concept more thoroughly (and to much greater effect) in “Lunch at the Gotham Café.”
In “CotC,” though, the focus is more on the ugliness about to happen than it is about the ugliness already happening between this two clearly unhappy people. The story is over twenty pages long, and while the pace never lags, it does take its time establishing the premise- the slow build gives the eventual reveal more weight. Back when it was first published, that premise would be a mystery to new readers; nowadays, we’ve heard the jokes so many times, it’s hard to imagine when we didn’t know the punchline in advance.
During an argument with Vicky, Burt takes his eyes off the road and someone runs out in front of their car; Burt hits them before he realizes what’s happening. The someone turns out to be a young boy, now very dead, but Burt won’t have to worry about a manslaughter charge, since the boy’s throat was cut before he came out onto the road. Cut by a murderer hiding in the never-ending rows of corn which line the land, a murderer who could very well be watching them right now.
Burt quickly bundles up the corpse and its belongings back into the car, and starts down the road toward Gatlin, the closest town. Vicky finds a creepy corn cob crucifix in the dead boy’s suitcase, which certainly doesn’t calm her already agitated mood, and things get worse when they arrive in town and the place is apparently deserted. She begs Burt to drive on to the next town, but resentful of her nagging, Burt ignores her. He decides to look into the church, the only building around that looks like it’s been worked on recently. Vicky is freaking out now and threatens to drive off if Burt isn’t back in five minutes. This leads to another nasty argument, reaching its peak when Burt grabs Vicky’s purse, dumps it out on the seat, and steals her keys.
The sound you hear is of a marriage cracking beyond repair. It’s also what’s known in the land of drama as a “tragic mistake.” As often is the case in King’s stories (and in horror stories in general), if the main characters had managed to work together, they might very well have survived; however, pity grievances and frustrations make any sort of cooperation impossible. The key theft is the culmination in a long series of bad vibes between the two, but it’s so obviously wrong-headed that it makes the mean kick of the story all the meaner. Each time you hit that moment, no matter how many times you’ve read it before, part of you hopes that this time, they’ll wise up. This time, Burt will admit that he’s scared too, and he’ll get back in the car and they’ll drive away as fast as possible. He never does, though.
So they’re both screwed now. It’s only a matter of time.
Contrast that with the movie version, where the first scene we get with Burt (Peter Horton) and Vicky (Linda Hamilton) has Vicky giving Burt a birthday surprise involving a cupcake and an impromptu serenade. It would only be cuter if they were both animated; it’s like a scene out of a Nora Ephron movie. If you know the story, you think, okay, this is sweet, but these two are going to crack under pressure soon enough.
Or, if you’re me, you really, really hope they will.
They don’t, though. They stay friendly through the whole frickin’ movie. It’s weird.
It’s also indicative of an overall lightening up of the original tale. This is immediately obvious from the pre-credits sequence. Unlike the source material, which doesn’t reveal the exact nature of the danger until a good way in, the filmmakers bring the killer kids out right from the start. Which, conceptually, isn’t that big a deal if you think about it; if you go into a horror movie called Children of the Corn, you’re expecting some killer kids.
Problem is, they also add a narrator. A child narrator. A seven year-old child narrator with a lisp. Let us, for a moment, revel in the sheer wrong-headedness of this choice. Somebody, in adapting a gritty, nasty little horror tale, decided what was missing from the original was a bloody Oliver! reject, with cute euphemisms and bad English and a gratingly cheerful disposition that has you rooting for the bad guys, who are only a little less lame.
Let’s be honest, though: “Children of the Corn” has a fairly absurd premise to begin with. Ignoring the He Who Walks Behind the Rows (and in his way, he’s probably the most believable part- at least he’s out and out supernatural), the basic idea of a bunch of kids managing to not only successfully kill off every local adult, but also to keep this massacre a complete secret from the outside world, is pretty damn goofy. Even worse is the inherent uncreepiness of children. Kids simply do not have the gravitas required to give the Evil Eye- and the “I didn’t do my homework today and I may not do it tomorrow” Eye isn’t nearly as effective. (Nor is the “If you don’t buy me that, I’m gonna scream alllll the way home” Eye, although damn is it annoying.)
So the movie opens with the kid narrator, Job (Robby Kiger), walking us through the original massacre, and while there’s some gore and unpleasant deaths, you still can’t help but snicker at the murderers themselves. It’s not scary. It’s done in full daylight, and the goal is less suspense, and more a freak out by the sheer amount of violence. This could’ve worked, but unfortunately the pace is so slow, and the kids themselves so obvious as they go about their business, that you never feel any real threat from them no matter how many people they kill.
This is doubly bad for the movie because when we watch Burt and Vicky get into trouble, we aren’t all that concerned. The opening should have served to give us an idea of what lay ahead, and like any good foreshadowing, make us nervous about dangers we can’t prevent or escape. Instead, it does just opposite.
And the movie continues on this path of neutering as much of the horror out of the original as possible. Its extended length and sluggish pace give us numerous opportunities to contemplate its premise (a premise they were kind enough to introduce to as soon as they possibly could), and its absurdity. While it’s possible that Burt and Vicky are the first people to come through town since the massacre (in the story, Burt decided to go off the highway and take the scenic route; I’m not sure if this is mentioned in the movie, but it would seem kind of odd, since Burt is on the way to an important interview of some sort); what’s less likely is that no one would have missed all the dead adults, and that the children could have fended for themselves for so long.
Still, I can live with that sort of implausibility, if the movie it lived in distracted me with horror or intelligence or, in the best case scenario, boobies, but Children of the Corn is, unsurprisingly, bankrupt of any of these things. Instead, it seems to be trying for a weird combination of horror movie and mainstream kiddie adventure flick. The adult heroes, for one thing, never seem to be in any real danger- one of the problems of actually seeing a bunch of kids trying to threaten a grown-up is the realization that, no matter how dangerous they may be, they don’t look particularly dangerous. A smart director might have tried to do something with that, might have used the absurdity of the image to startling and disturbing effect. Here, it’s just dumb; the kids are annoying, and aside from the leader, Isaac (John Franklin) and his Brutus, Malachai (Courtney Gains), none of them seem capable of swearing, let alone slitting people’s throats.
Interesting trivia: while Isaac is supposed to be about ten or eleven years old, the actor playing him is a seventeen year-old; physically, his voice is a little weird (it sounds- stretched) and his face is pinched, but it’s subtle enough he could get his movie tickets cheap. It makes sense that they’d try to hire an actor of more experience for the role, especially if he still looked vaguely age-appropriate. Gains does an adequate job, although he’s more obnoxious than frightening.
Even worse than the evil kids are the two good guy kids, the narrator Job and his partner in crime, Sarah (Anna Marie McEnvoy). I’ve complained about the Lisping Menace already; Sarah’s main virtue is that she doesn’t talk quite as much. Visually, she’s basically just Newt from Aliens in Amish garb, only without any of Newt’s appeal. Their purpose in the movie, to connect with the adults, inform them of the situation, and help them defeat the bad guys, undercuts one of the short story’s strongest points: our fear for Burt and Vicky is based in large part on their sudden and total isolation from anyone who might help them. It’s just them (and they aren’t even a team), and the Children, and the only thing the Children want, with humorless intensity, is to serve He Who Walks Behind the Rows; the only thing He Who Walks wants is to kill. There’s a hint at the end that at least one of the children is growing tired of the current arrangement, but it’s only a hint, and the nearly Lovecraftian omnipresence of He Who Walks renders that hint nearly pointless. Like some pregnant thirteen year-old is going to be able rebel again a monster that’s almost a god.
Then we get our movie, with the Cobbsey Twins and the super loving B and V. If there’s someone to explain what’s going to Burt almost as soon as he wanders into town, the mystery’s gone- it becomes mundane, somehow. Plus, it’s no longer Burt being hunted in the dark; it’s Burt with Job and Sarah getting his back, helping him perform rescue operations, tipping the odds in his favor. Hell, Burt’s so intoxicated with self-confidence he sees fit to walk into the middle of a church service and start ranting about how all this corn-based religious stuff is wrong; the kids run him out, but when he returns later on to rescue his wife in the cornfield, he launches right back into what he was saying. After kicking Malachi’s ass, I might add. And some of the kids even seem to be listening to him!
There’s even dissension among the children themselves. Isaac’s the nominal leader, but Malachi is starting to get ideas above his station. It’s like watching Cobra Commander and Destro go at it, only without the cool metal faces.
Excellent work, movie, you’ve eliminated nearly everything that was actually scary about the story in the first place.
What’s that you say? There’s the old guy who gets killed halfway through? Pah! This is wrong on any number of levels. The movie posits that, in the original massacre, the children let one adult survive, an aging mechanic who had a garage outside of town. They have some sort of mutual agreement, where he fixes their machinery, and they- um- don’t kill him. Cause of course it would be waaaay too much effort for him to just drive off and tell the authorities. His presence is idiotic, and it’s only purpose is to up the body count. Phooey on that.
Yeah, but there’s still a monster running around, right? Right?
Not so much. You don’t see the monster until the end, and even then you never “see” it; the damn thing’s invisible, making it’s presence known through a bad animation (or something), and an ability to dig rapid tunnels through the earth chasing after our heroes. Said tunnels look exactly- I mean exactly like the sort of tunnels made by Bugs Bunny or the groundhog in Caddyshack, only bigger, and the size doesn’t make up for their overall silliness. The eeriest moment we get with this creature- this creature that essentially served as the final, bitter twist in the short story, and was responsible for a lot of that story’s lasting impact- is some colored clouds on the horizon.
I mean, I know this was low budget, but couldn’t somebody have at least put a little effort in?
The sad thing is, somebody probably did.
I suppose I should at least mention the religious aspect of the story, although I’m at a loss as to what to do with it. In both versions, the foundation of the killer kids’ new society is a weird combination of old-time Catholicism and ritual sacrifice, with a little Logan’s Run thrown in for fun. While we never have it explicitly described, the kids seem to worship Christ through his avatar, He Who Walks, in order to ensure the health of their corn crop, which they treat with a near fetish-like devotion. The major part of this worship is done through sacrifice, either of adults from outside (which happens almost never), or, the primary source, children who get too old.
There seems to be little symbolism here; a cult just seems the most basic way to join a group of disparate individuals together in an unbreakable bond, and King is not a stranger to equating Christian evangelism with blind obsession. (Just read Carrie.) The nature of that obsession doesn’t change between story and film, although the story version is a bit more intense. Neither is making any serious statement on Christianity, though, and that’s probably for the best.
In the final estimation, the only remarkable thing about Children of the Corn is it’s essential mediocrity. While not stunningly awful by any means, the movie barely manages to justify its own existence through the automatic brand recognition of Stephen King’s name; it goes without saying that there is literally nothing here that suggests sequel potential, let alone cries out for it. Clearly it made some money at the box office. Enough money so that, nine years later, somebody thought, “Hey, what about those brats in Nebraska?” Two years later, they thought it again, and so on. I suppose we can blame the DTV market for that.
Sometimes these things happen, I guess. Because ridiculous or not, this movie has become a part of our cultural lexicon. You see references every now and then in movies and on TV, and most people are familiar with the basic premise, even if they don’t know the original. Perhaps it really is some deep-rooted cultural anxiety we share, a suspicion that gave birth to novels like The Lord of the Flies and The Bad Seed: the knowledge that, to those of us past fifteen, children are a mystery, and how hard would it be for them to start plotting behind our backs? How would we know?
Regardless, rarely has so much been made from so little. And rarely has a franchise depended so entirely on the cheap abundance of adolescents and corn. Of all kinds.
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John Franklin played Cousin Itt in both Addams Family movies. No joke, just thought that was cool.