SPOOPYWEEN DAY 11 CHILDREN OF THE CORN 2023!!!

Day 11

Children of the Corn 2023

I made a choice, I don’t regret it. Yet. But I feel I will.

There was a remake of Firestarter not long ago, I was really curious to see that one as I really enjoyed the book and the first film honestly has its charm.

The remake was a flaming piece of shit, with nothing redeeming about it. The characters were unlikeable and unsympathetic. Especially the girl. I was going to put it on this list just so I could stare it down again. But I didn’t want to. Because once was more than enough. SO much more than enough for that film.

So I came across news that Children of the Corn was being remade. I have the distinct feeling in my intestines, usually reserved for poor life decisions involving three soft tacos from Taco Bell and a chicken Quesadilla.

This remake looks shit, and the scores online support this.

But when faced with the dilemma. One that both seems unreal, as well as jumping back in time. When you ask yourself. Which shitty film version of Stephen Kings work do I wanna watch. Well. Welcome to Day 11.

Because I’d rather hold false hope in cult crazy kids killing versus watch a girl set a cat on fire because her dumbass tried petting a feral cat.

That being said, yes I have read the original short story. It’s from one of my favorite King short story collections Night Shift.

Night Shift has some amazing stories in there, and I highly recommend it. The story for Children of the Corn is really just a fun grave encounter when two people driving along stop in an abandoned town. Only to discover the adults dead, A church organ stuffed with corn, new versions of the bible and a bloody history depicted over a few years time of the kids killing the adults, All this before the man and woman are chased down by armed cultist kids and killed.

It's a creepy fun short story, and the original film tried expanding on it and giving it a happy-ish ending.

That film was okay. It however spawned almost as many sequels as there are versions of Army of Darkness floating out there.

Seriously The number of different versions of that film are…staggering.

So at any rate, lets cut the crust off this shit sandwich and just dig on in.

The Film

What an excellent day for some mass murders! Well sort of. I guess.

We are starting off with the best Shudder has to offer and that comes in the form of a happy girl. Eden playing cowgirl on a saddle outside a Children’s home, as she watches one of the older boys from the home coming out of the cornfield with a twinkle of murder in his eye, Boyd. Boyd has spent the past two nights in the cornfield and gotten in trouble for it. No one knows what that boy is doing out there in the corn, and frankly no one wants to. They can imagine.

Unfortunately none of them imagined murder!

Now Boyd is a prophet of The One Behind the Rows, and he is being sent to send a message. The start of one at least. He is headed for the children’s home and stabbing any and all adults in his path.

This film is setting itself up as a prequel to what we find happening in the original movie with the town over run and all adults dead. Which that film also showed but. This one is doing it there way.

Which is hilariously over the top and extremely what the fuck.

Dig if you will a picture, if a teenager going on a rampage, gut stabbing several adults, and now held up in a Children’s home with a bunch of kids. Innocent kids. Now, you have local law enforcement sent in to deal with this situation. They call it a hostage situation and a dangerous armed teen. A teen armed with a rusty ass knife.

The decision. Made by the local sheriff. To deal with this situation. Is one I laugh and applaud, because I am a horrible person, but also left me shaking my head wondering exactly how this sounded like the best option. The option they went with?

You have 15 children.

Held hostage by one teen with a knife.

In a building with windows.

You can call in a sniper. You can go in shooting. Bust down the door and take him out. Flash bang and bum rush him. Or call in a hostage negotiator.

The Sheriff and the local farmers. Because their input is valuable to the Sheriff. Decided to forgo all of these options as well as all tried and true tactics. To instead take a hose to one of the windows and begin pumping Halothane gas into the room.

Halothane gas is an anesthetic used by vets on cattle mostly. So humans and cattle are pretty much the same thing. This works out as brilliantly as you’d imagine.

On the pluss side. They ‘do’ manage to knock out Boyd. So. Go team!

On the bad side….they did kill 15 innocent children from Heart seizures and suffication from pumping copious amounts of the gas into the house.

Win some lose some I guess?

Seriously the thought process there is. Staggering. The fact their town paper. Well. Social media. Even talks about how what the fuck this all was, and how it’s the end of his career. That’s fun. But what kept me laughing through this whole thing, and yes I was laughing my ass off. The cherry on top is after we see two stories online depicting these events and the trouble the sheriff is in, we see the Sheriff who just scoffs and says “Well, there goes my re-election.”

Ya don’t say?

Fuck me running it was funny but also genuinely just. What the hell man.

There was a game I used to love playing that was infinitely funny whenever you did the wrong thing. Because the game would pull cut scenes to tell you, you did a bad thing. It was Called Police Quest SWAT.

There was a mission, the first one. An elderly lady had a gun. She I believe shot at her husband or someone. She was in the backyard and you as a SWAT member had to control the situation and address the threat.

You completed the mission by using a mirror to look around corners and see her in the backyard, and then calmly talk her down and address position to her. Arrest her and gold star for you.

I took the Cobra approach of kicking the backdoor down and shooting her. I got yelled at and failed.

I tried rounding the corner and she shot me. I tried using a flash grenade. I failed.

But god it was hilarious.

BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL OBVIOUSLY WRONG!

The man has a moody teenager going on a stabbing spree, so some local farmer mentions having high powered cow knock out gas and the guy decides “Fuck it lets gas that puppy!” Boom kids dead, and the man wonders why no one will vote for him.

I mean, I love the movie for making me laugh like this, but goddamn.

But that’s not all. We learn that young Eden is now our only survivor, and the sheriff would like the town preacher to talk to her and maybe find out if she knew anything or if Boyd had said anything to her. Which he had.

He told her he didn’t want to hear her cry anymore, and then whispered knife in hand “Don’t worry, Eden. Nothing ever really dies in the corn.”

So the priest walks on over all happy as can be, trying to think how to comfort her in the fact 15 of her friends are gased by the man who ‘saved’ her. But she doesn’t care. She’s happy putting together an Alice in Wonderland puzzle. It’s a bit, odd. But when asked if Boyd said anything to her, she shrugged and said not really. But he did say he was sorry. “Sorry for killing all the adults in that building?” the priest ask in some kinda shock that seems out of place, she says no, “I think he was sorry for not killing all of you.”

And then we get our movie title and boy are they proud of it.

It’s a bit odd because Eden is just, acting like ‘yes this is all part of the plaaaan’. When before all this shit she was just happy riding a saddle playing cowgirl. But now she’s gung ho lets kill more adults? I mean I kinda get it when even a kid her age would know not to gas an entire room of kids but still. It’s a huge shift and we weren’t exactly shown the ‘reach’ or spread of Boyd’s message given to him from….He who walks behind the rows.

But lets go with it.

We got bigger fish to fry. Kinda. Well actually we got teen drama with our bro and sis team of the film. Which. Just leads to more hitting you over the head with their new take on past events. Which is really kinda…eh.

So we got Boleyn or Bo, and her brother Robert..or Ro. Anyway the setup with these two never gonna part brother sister team forever and ever, is that Bo is leaving town in a few days and headed for college because she’s got the smart brains, while her brother has the dumbs and won’t ever get out of this two bit hick town. Naturally this won’t cause him to push her aside in retaliation and join in any evil raindeer games later on.

Eden is also full blown evil now by the way.

She is our Queen of the corn. Which. Okay sure, why not. She wears a red wig. Because as we learned in the beginning while putting together the Alice in Wonderland puzzle. She likes the evil red queen. “Because she makes the world the way she wants it to be”.

It’s not especially creepy, or horrific. It’s just….eh.

So our teen duo who are ripe for killing, decide to follow Eden who is on horseback, as the priest who said he’d adopt her at the beginning did mention he had old nag’s she could ride. Eden leads the Ro and Bo…RoBo. To the silliest wild kids of the corn training camp. We got girls with bow and arrows slaying pumpkins. Boys with bats bashing produce, kids with rusty knives they used corn husk to fashion as handles for, and. And this is the vision He Who Walks Behind the Rows had for his….cult. I guess.

But RoBo can’t see that these kids aren’t exactly full of evil and murder. They just accept something I wish was true when I played with friends back in the 80’s, that its just kids being kids when you let them use hunting arrows, run around with blades, and bash up produce and some grandmas car.

Also they are making a boy walk the plank on a large silo above some dried corn, because he let his old hunting dog eat poison and die, instead of trying to…stop the dog from eating rat poison it found? So he has to be pushed off the blank and burned in the corn. Which a kid has a lighter ready to go.

Life in Nebraska I guess.

Which I mean. That’s fair. When all you have is acres and acres of corn, and nothing else to do. Sure why not.

Do we see them punish this kid and actually die? No, they don’t have balls.

Instead it’s meant as a moment to introduce us to the ‘slow beginnings of madness that Eden controls, and show us our protagonist RoBo and her a former or still going on boy crush of Bo’s Calden. Who has just turned 18 and is investing in his future to also leave town. By taking part in the weed trade.

Just a troubled youth, selling weed so he can get out of this small town and into the big ol city. With a pretty friend Bo who is going to save the planet someday. Goddamn.

Also, Calden is dead man walking. Him announcing he just turned 18 is the equivalent in Children of the Corn films as someone being ‘One week from retirement’. The thing with the cult and entity in the corn was that as soon as a kid grew to the age of 18. They were killed. 18 is an adult, there for you must give your life willingly as a sacrifice, or be hunted and killed. So, lets see if he makes it to grow enough weed to get out of this town.

This is, only going to get more meh. And not really in a funny way unfortunately.

Because we need to get the ball rolling here and try to make this modern day remake, and make no mistake, I am calling this exactly what the fuck it is, they’re masquerading it around as a prequel. That’s bullshit to see you on seeing this.

So we need the adults to be evil, worthy of death, while also giving reason for the entity in the corn to kill.

So get ready for a heaping helping of SciFi channel worthy story.

The towns people…well, okay. Not towns people. The town rednecks are meeting to discuss the future of the town, and the corn. The corn is dying in their town. Because the town made a deal with ‘big corn’ and no I’m not joking. Big Corn made a deal with the town, dumped a whole bunch of pesticides, GMO, and other chemicals into their fields. Causing the grown to turn sour, crops to die and toxin fungus on the crops.

So Bo’s dad, is the town figure selling the town people on the idea of destroying the corn fields as their only way to escape this. By the power of subsidies.

See “Big Corn” stepped in because they wanted them to grow mass amounts of corn, so they could produce more cola for third world countries, and promised everyone they’d be super duper cool people rich if they did it. Instead their fields are dying. So her dad is telling everyone if they subsidize their land. The Federal Government will pay them NOT to grow corn. It’s a can’t lose situation.

The only other option is to actually try and solve the problem of their fields dying and corn dying. But that takes work. And farmers don’t wanna work. That takes time, and money. And they aint got neither!

So Bo decides at this town meeting she needs to stand up for science. Because this is what she’s leaving this shit town for, to become a scientist that will save the world, from her school in Boston. So she publicly tells her dad he’s wrong and his plan sucks. Then tries to plead modern science to a room with 1950’s rednecks in 2020. It does not go well. Because one fat neckbeard redneck domestic violence poster child patron of Milwaukee’s Best. This Truckers dream of a man leads the town in mocking her, a woman. For speaking her mind, cuz she’s only 17, and a brat who don’t know nothin bout growin no money.

Add to this, Eden and her killer kid posse entering the town hall and hearing all this. Hearing the nasty money hungry adults cheer and nod in agreement with subsidizing their land and killing the corn forever. Eden tries also to make a speech to the people.

Which our hairy barrel of porkrinds and slimjims laughs at her for too! Because she’s a little girl who should go play with her dolly.

Seriously this guy is not only the voice of backwoods wisdom holding sway over the crowd. He’s also a grown ass man openly mocking and laughing at kids for trying to say they’d like a say in what happens, to the point that everyone. Everyone in the building is laughing and mocking the kids.

It’s fucking stupid man.

Even MORE stupid, is Bo’s friends trying to stand up for the kids in “They should be aloud to vote on the land, because it’s their future too” Fuck right off. This is just painful. But sure why not. Paint the town as desperate villains mocking their kids for money so when you kill them later it’s justified.

This is not Children of the Corn.

Those kids were swayed by an evil entity in the cornfield choosing one child as a profit, a messenger to deliver their word, and their word was to massacre the adults. To make sacrifices and feed the entity blood. Innocent kids turned cult fanatics that killed their parents, grandparents and all the towns people. They were the goddamn Children of the Corn.

Not the Children of the locally sourced GMO free Corn.

This is just painful writing. It’s a dumb idea but hey go for it, it keeps it current right? Hillbilly farmers wanting that cash cow and kicking over kids for a profit so the evil that comes will be a horror fans cheering moment. Because you can’t have innocent blood. It has to be swayed and tainted.

I know I’m old, but people don’t realize what horror films are. Rather they just don’t get them anymore. I…I’ll save that rant for after. But goddamn this is lame. And SOMEONE a prequel. Fuck you.

BUT WAIT!

It gets even better! Oh this film is the gift that keeps shitting on your face after the glass on the table above you has already broken and you pleaded them to stop.

Eden is out recruiting people to her cause. She’s going around converting kids to the corn, and we even get a really not needed, in no way creepy so much as awkward scene where she lures Ro into the corn. Because like I mentioned before hand. His sister leaving for the big city and him being stuck in this town in no way is going to cause any kind of rift between them and put him on the fence of surving the evil shit kid or his sister. But here we are. Eden trying her best to look wicked and waving him over into the corn, while little girls play ‘He loves me, he loves me not’ with corn and manage to take something and turn it into a cringy song.

On top of this, and this I will thank the movie for giving us as it got a laugh out of me. Bo.

Sweet Bo. She is talking with her best friends about saving the town she plans to leave behind in a week, and tells them she has a plan. The bestest plan to save the whole town. Guilt tripping.

Fuck me with corn turned backwards.

So she tells her friends that she went online, looked up a reporter and she will be there THIS evening at 10:30 to do a huge cover story. On the town corn? No not really. She will be broadcasting Bo and her friends. Having a mock trial. Where she will present her dad for for trial before the court, for his plan to give up on saving the town and selling it off for profit to save every town persons family from financial ruin.

Now that’s not the funny part. That’s just…eh okay sure why not?

The fun comes when Bo goes roaming the local farm area and finds Eden with her friends. God I love this.

Eden is in a large dug out pit. With her friends. She has her red queen wig on, and all of the children. All of them. Are covered in hogs blood. Because they slaughtered a hog, and hung it upside down to bleed it. So they could paint the corn stalk roots.

Now…

Bo ask them. Ask Eden. What the fuck are you doing?

Eden smiles up at her and tells her, well. She’s the red queen. She wanted to paint the corn red so, they’re painting everything red. Like the red queen. And admits they had to slaughter a hog, so they would have ‘red’ to paint with.

All of these kids have murder on their faces. They are covered head to toe in pigs blood, in a pit, beside the corpse of the pig, knives in its gutted belly.

And Bo never minds it.

She just squats down and says “So you guys REALLY want to save the corn? Okay then help me by getting all the adults to believe there is a town meeting at the town hall tonight, tell them my dad called an emergency meeting. Oh I also contacted this super big time reporter lady to do a story on this, so meet her on the outskirts of town and make sure she gets to the town hall by 10 okay? Byeeeeeeee!”

This bitch.

I fucking love it.

You have a pit of kids, slaughtering a hog. Painting with its blood and entrails, and your thoughts are….huh well I guess kids play different, and hey they wanna save the town so bad they killed a pig? Help me you little rebels!”

Get the fuck out lol

This is making so much more sense now. I mean jesus before we only had to deal with a Sheriff who gassed an entire house full of orphans to take down one kid armed with a knife. Now we got Bo the crop saver ignoring kids murdering an animal, armed and covered with blood.

My parents took away a huge survival knife my moms brother got me for my 10th birthday. Because it was the same knife RAMBO used, and I loved RAMBO. They took it from me and returned it to him because. I was a fucking kid, and they didn’t want me having a murder knife I’d either kill some animal on accident with, or kill myself with.

Fuck man, if I were raised in Nebraska instead of California, I could’ve been carving up pigs and wearing their skulls on my head and it’d be just another Saturday!

I’m sorry but, there is stupid, and then there’s blindingly stupid. What about this…..saving it for after the film.

So here we go. The grand idea that will save the town. A mock trial, that will shame her father, put it on the web and this will save the town. Using murder hungry cult kids to gather up the adults. But its even better! SOMEHOW!

So how will they get their dad to go to this emergency townhall meeting to be mocked on television and the net? Will they also lie to him like Bo told the kids, and just tell him there’s an emergency town meeting? Fuck no. They tie his wrist up in his sleep, wake him up and tell him not to wake mom, and that they’re sorry to do this but….hold your tears….somethings, are worth fighting for.

I’m sorry, I am not a parent. Thankfully. But when you believe, you live in a time. Where your wake up at 10:30 at night, finding yourself bound, and your two kids at the foot of your bed. Telling you this has to happen, and they’re sorry.

You don’t get out of bed, sigh and figure well okay lets play this game then go back to bed.

No matter how smart, beautiful, passionate, strong willed and brilliant your children are.

If you, as a parent, wake up with your hands bound in plastic wrapped wire, and find your kids at the foot of your bed in the dead of night? There is usually not a good reason and an even worse ending to that scenario.

In fact that’s a setup that would happen before your kids kill you in something like I don’t know, a village of the damned where kids are killing adults, or you know. Children who play in the corn and listen to demons.

But no, its to make a mockery of their dad for social media to save the town. They hope.

It’s a bold strategy Cotton, lets hope it pays off.

So dad relents, sighs and goes with his kids. Because why not. What’s the worst thing that could happen.

I guess I should also add to this, Before bed time. Bo is taking a look out the window and see’s children. Covered in blood, running down the streets, armed. One even stops to stare at her and gives a demon face before running off.

Bo has seen. The children she sent off to get the adults, covered in blood, running through the streets with torches and weapons.

But still think’s they’re either very passionate about saving the corn, or you know, kids gonna be kids.

SO OF COURSE THINGS ARE GOING TO WORK OUT WELL!

So yes, they drive into town, only to find cars wrecked and on fire. The town hall quiet. With Eden sitting outside eating an apple.

Bo is finally going to have a child bring her up to speed on what’s been happening, and what she ignored for the sake of shaming her dad. Who is still bound in the back of his car.

It’s unfortunately not even that funny, or a mystery what’s happened. You see Edens horse standing in the doorway of the town hall. With a rope around the saddle horn, leading inside the hall. You know someones on the other end of that. Because it can only BE ONE SOMEONE. You can take your bets on who but if you do, I am just gonna stare at you.

Actually I can’t hear you so, there’s that too.

Bo comically ask Eden where everyone is? Like her fancy big time reporter, which admittedly it did make me chuckle when she said “Where is she? The reporter I told you to pick up and bring here?”

You told, a 10 year old. To pick up an adult.

Remember, Bo had the grades to get out of that town and go to College.

In Boston.

Well Eden tells Bo how she was apparently late, and missed the trials. The kids held them, and there was no reporter lady because, something more important must have come up. Bo rushes inside the city hall and oh no. It’s…wait for it. The poster child abusive drunk, truck drivers dream redneck that laughed at those kids and mocked poor Eden. So he’s being hung and dies. Yay.

From there the kids, somehow have taken everyone else to the towns jail. Where all the adults are round up and grumpy inside the towns jail. This is a town of 20-ish people.

The kids are being evil and Eden just looks bored. Again. Relatable.

Now again. As a comedy. This film is working.

Bo and her friends can’t believe these little kids, who were covered in blood, slaughtered a pig, pushed a kid off a tower to his death, and fashioned weapons with corn husk handles. Somehow turned evil and killed people, then imprisoned the rest.

Who’d a thunk it?

Well Bo has another idea. They need to stand up and do something. Even her dear old dad is telling her they need to do something. They gotta stand up and stop these murderous kids. Free the adults and lets talk this out.

So out of nowhere. The “I just turned 18” future pot farmer Calder Colvington. Nods. Nods again. Begins getting pumped up, and says yeah. Yeah your right! We need to do something! This needs to end!

So he pumps himself up, runs all of 5 steps from the back wall of the Sheriffs office, before taking a baseball bat to the back, and another one across the face. Somehow these kids are strong enough to in one swing of a bat to rip off the entire right cheek and tare the nose of Calder, who is now dead and bleeding all over the floor.

It’s hysterical and so bad. Also technically Bo has had two great ideas to save the town and people, that now have resulted in people dying. Not a good track record. But she’s doing her best!

So what ever will the evil kids do now with the adults all in one spot? Well the adults would like to know as well.

The answer is less exciting than you’d imagine, and likely what you might have expected. Eden puts on a gas mask, with whiskers. Because she’s a kid. And tells the adults “I hope you can hold your breath longer than the rest of my delinquent friends” referencing the kids the sheriff gassed. But this is a backwards town lost in time. So technically everyone gassed those kids. Because they’re evil money hungry farmers.

So yes. Eden is holding a hose full of Cow fart gas, which one of the corn farmers has to even scream out for us what the gas is, incase you wondered and forgot what happened at the start of the movie. Which if you did, I don’t blame you. No jury in the world would either.

Did Eden kill them like they did her friends? No.

Why the hell not?!

Because we still. Somehow. Painfully have 45 minutes left of this movie. So she succeeded in knocking the adults out, and her with her kid army. Managed to move the adults from town, through the cornfields, and dumped them into the blood painted pit.

So naturally, people begin to wake up. Questioning where they are, what’s going on, and even funnier.

EVEN FUCKING FUNNIER.

I shit you fucking not, this is goddamn hilarious. As everyone begins to wake up in the death pit, and our town Sheriff begins to mock Eden and talk about how he’s gonna beat her ass. Eden gives her not as badass as you think it sounds like “You wanna play with me? Okay lets play”, she gives the order for the boys to operate the tractors and begin digging up the soil to dump into the hole.

That is not the funny part. It’s stupid as fuck. You can’t dump all the soil back into the hole that quickly, with two tractors. Pluss? You can climb up that dirt as it piles up. But I guess not because the kids are super fast with the dirt and the adults so stupid they just don’t think to do anything but scream.

The funny part in this comes from Bo. Sweet summer child Bo, who has yet to fail us in being the source for fun in this film.

Bo.

Who saw these kids put one of their own on trial and try to burn alive, who saw these kids painting that pit in blood with a hog they slaughtered. Who went around town collecting adults, killing some and arresting others. Holding public executions. Bo who watched her friend get his fucking face smashed off with a baseball bat by these kids, and gas their fucking parents. MOVING half of them into the corn field.

See’s what’s going on, sees the kids begin to fill in the death pit. While her mom of all people and others scream. She stands there watching this, and says “What are you doing?!”

Bitch are you for real?!

Seriously, is this bitch for real?

So apparently these kids are just, misunderstood, and cranky. Not murderous crazy shits. And when she sees her brother siding with them? Well obviously okay. That makes sense to be shocked at. Because she hadn’t seen him since that night. But here we are, the next morning, after spending a night in jail with murder kids, and she’s still…shocked. That they want to murder?

Like for real?

For real, real. Not for play, play.

Well, apparently seeing this happen is enough to convince Bo that these kids might have problems, so she needs to work on rescuing her dad. Which she doesn’t. She continues doing the least she can. When the kids plan to kill more people she convinces her dad to run through the corn as its his only way out, and to find help. Because that’ll work out. Running into corn. Where the kids told you ‘He who walks’ lives. The demon. Well okay to be fair she doesn’t believe in anything until she sees it three times and gets confirmation what she saw exist and is evil.

So dad runs off into the corn. Does he make it? Will he pop up at the end? Who cares.

Bo is apparently now on a mission to get out of this town, for her and her super friends to stop the madness, get out of the town, and take it from there.

She is even more convinced, when she can finally see Eden has taken things too far. Because Eden holds a kids town hall meeting. Where she riles everyone up about their cause. That they need to kill the adults. Because they killed their futures. They killed the land. They poisoned everything with pesticides, GMO, and chemicals. So they must perish, as their own futures would if not for them taking control now and running the country.

I am not joking, Look up the script online for this movie. Don’t watch the movie, don’t youtube clips of the movie. Just read the script for yourself. This is what Eden says. That they must kill the adults for poisoning the earth, and how there are other kids like them in other towns and cities across the nation that will rise up and do the same as them to save the earth because the corn and the earth will feed and keep them safe.

Remember when Children of the Corn used to be a hugely religious cult that just killed anyone over 18? Sacrificed them to He Who Walks Behind the Rows?

Well Bo the wonder savior can’t do shit. Her friends also died. Off screen. Which did get a tiny ‘heh’ from me, because of course they died, for reasons. Not related to their age or anything to do with the original it claims to be the prequel of. Which again. Fuck you for saying film.

So as they lack anything original, we have to play out the final act of the first film. Somehow Bo’s mom is alive, the kids are going to sacrifice her to the one now simply known as “He who Walks”, which honestly if he’s a corn demon shouldn’t it be “He who Stalks?” that pun is worth more than the whole hour of this film.

Moms going to be sacrificed. Bo wants to save her. So as the kids call out their god and no one shows up. Bo declares their god a false god that never existed. Eden tells her to shut her dirty mouth and instead Bo puts a knife to Edens throat.

Good! Slit her fucking throat! Take out the leader and watch the rest fall!

But no. We hear a roar from the incel of the corn and Eden wrestles free from Bo with a mildly annoyed look on her face, and out from the cgi corn shakes out a walking stalking corn creature. Which drags her off kicking and screaming. And Bo gets hit with a bat. Finally.

But no, she isn’t dead. The kids instead only knocked her out and put her in a pit. Waking her up by dousing her in gasoline.

Eden plans to burn her alive. Which Bo still had to ask what they were going to do.

Well Bo reminds them that the fields are full of toxins and crop dust which is super duper flammable so if they burn her. Everything burns. Them, the fields, the corn monster. All of it.

Eden can’t have any fun apparently. So she declares fine. If we can’t burn you. We’ll chop you up.

So Bo decides the only way to beat kids, is to fight like a kid. So now that she’s soaked in skin burning gasoline. She nay nays then whips her hair back and fourth. Hopefully blinding the kids. Giving her time to run into the corn and escape.

We are in the final moments of the film thank Pazuzu. We also enter what I would like to call the corn maze of Bo’s failures.

We discover her dad has been killed and made into a scarecrow. She hears her mom whimpering not far off and we see the cgi corn monster tare her mom in half.

Her failures are now complete.

And we can laugh again! Laughter is good.

The corn monster…The Husker. Yes lets go with that.

The Husker takes both ripped halves of mom and shakes them over the corn. There is no way this was meant to look scary or BE remotely terrifying. It’s pure comedy and it doesn’t look like anything else. Seriously. Imagine you are shaking a towel on the beach to remove the sand. While trying not to get sand on yourself. That’s what it looks like.

Naturally she’s fucked. The demon spots her, she can’t hide in the corn. Because the Husker IS the corn, and she wreaks of gasoline. It finds her, it corners her, it looks like this is the end. They give us their money shot of a closeup monster Husker face, and. Bo is saved. Because nearby her. Is the very corn blade her dead friend Calder found earlier in the film and tossed wildly into the corn. Well it just so happened to land right there where it needed to be, and she stabs the Husker in the face. Allowing her to escape. Find her dead friend Calder’s grandmother’s car, and drive off.

She is driving a car, with a busted gas tank. We know its busted because Calder mentioned this at the beginning. It barely started up, but she got it to. So she decides a dying car is worth stopping when she hits the main road. So she can look at a road sign for their town and its slogan about happiness, so she can grimace at the sign and say “Yeah, fuck that shit”, and take off. Only to have the car die 10 feet from that spot. Again.

Was it worth it? Well it’ll have to be. Because even when the miracle car starts back up again. Somehow Eden is in the back seat and these two are going to have a meaningful conversation.

I know what you must be thinking. Is Eden going to kill Bo? Will Bo ever make it to Boston?

However can Bo escape this!

Whatever you imagine? Dumb it down by about 50. Then imagine someone wrote this while huffing their own farts, and paint thinner.

Toss in a boba tea and you might get closer to it.

Eden has a cattle bolt gun. She plans to execute Bo. But not in the car. She wants to kill Bo on her knees out on the road. For reasons of comical evil.

Seriously like Doctor Evil wanting to leave Powers and his lady in a room with sharks and assume his evil plan went well, instead of doing like his son Scott suggest and just shooting them there and then. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

So Bo, has the bright idea. To ask Eden “hey, can I at least have one last cigarette before I go?”

Eden. Who is sitting beside Bo. The girl they soaked in tractor gasoline 5 minutes ago, who told them not to set her on fire or they’d all burn. Sitting beside you. Is asking to light up for one last trip into flavor country.

Eden for a moment ponders and ask Bo “You smoke?” and Bo pulls out of her ass the absolute weakest “Uh yeah, it’s a bad habit, I was quitting today”

SO EDEN LETS HER!

But don’t worry. DON’T WORRY!

You don’t have to turn the film off, or gasp in horror as an actress lights a cigarette. No. She only activates the car lighter, and brings it with her before getting on her knees on the road. For the most mind boggling how the fuck did you even reason this bullshit out ending.

Hold on to your skulls, incase your mind tries to escape.

As Eden readies to bolt gun Bo’s majestic Boston brain all over the asphalt. Bo delivers the least badass sounding line of “You really think the second you soaked me in all that tractor fuel, that I wasn’t going to make sure I ended up right here? Burn!”

And with that. Through magic unknown to all of us. Bo slams the car lighter into the ground, and…the leaking gas from the car is the only fuel that ignites. Away from the car itself and safely away from Bo. Who is soaked in highly flammable tractor fuel. But the cornfields? The cornfields are fuuuuuucked. And not just from where she drove either! The entire trail Bo ran. All the way back to the barn, is on fire, and wouldn’t you know it? All the synth corn, chemicals, pesticides, gmo. ALL OF IT. Created a reaction on par with a nuke. Blowing up the barn, the fields. Destroying acres upon acres of corn.

The children come out of the corn, sad. Eden is sad. The Husker is on fire and comes out of the cornfield with a literal “You guuuuys? What the freakin heck?” Eden apologizes to the monster, and walks off sadly into the corn. To die with the Husker.

Oh as for the other kids? They’re fine. Apparently watching the corn burn, The monster they worshipped look sad, and Eden walking off to her death even more sad was enough to convince them maybe they shouldn’t had killed their parents and tried taking over the town

But we can’t end there. We instead fast forward to the aftermath. For some reason Bo is walking through the corn and.

You know what fuck it. Fuck this. She walks through the corn, encounters cgi burned Eden who growls out nothing is dead in the corn blah blah blah the fucking end.

The End

This movie was fucking stupid. It was lazy, dumbed down bullshit that somehow.

Some.

Fucking.

How.

Managed to make the Netflix Texas Chainsaw movie look like a classic, and managed to be SOMEHOW more low bar than…than.

Fuck it near broke my goddamn mind.

Again, remember. This is marketed as a prequel. A modern day retelling prequel. That has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ORIGINAL OR ANY OTHER VERSION THERE IN! It’s bullshit! It’s a trap they marketed to try and get you to watch this piece of garbage.

I should’ve suffered through Firestarter. Because at least THAT

THAT!!

Someone fucking tried.

This was just so goddamn low ball and not even half assed it was painful.

You had a simple story. A simple job.

And you blew it. How?!

Kids turn into freakish cult based around corn monster that they worship and build a belief off of. Killing all adults that come to their town. Killing their own when they turn adult. Sacrificing to their demon god.

It’s that simple.

But you take it, and turn the town into a stereotype of evil for profit mustache twirling villains, who only care about making money, with a sheriff who kills innocent kids to take out one violent one, because who cares I can get away with what I want because corruption. You use an earth first off to college girl to shame the town of comic books villains and have the kids kill them all because, they took away their corn future, and that’s somehow better than a kids formed religious cult….because your fucking high on legal THC?

Fuuuuck you.

The writing in this, my dear fucking god.

Was Bo just hit with a shovel in the head a lot as a kid? Was it maybe all the chemicals in the corn? That somehow dumbed her down to insane levels as to ignore kids. Kids as in under 12. Slaughtering a hog bathing in blood, and trying to kill another kid? Was the intent that her head was so far up her own ass about saving the soil that she just took it as these kids are playing and are passionate about the environment like me so I should have them help me?

At what point did her intelligence drop so far down. As to make it into college, but somehow question the intent of children. Who murdered her friend with a baseball bat. Took half his fucking face off with a baseball bat. Without blinking an eye. To question those same kids. As to why they are about to dump soil on a hole filled with people?

What part of ANY OF THAT, felt clever? Was it supposed to be? Please God tell me it wasn’t.

Nothing we are given in this film. Nothing for the characters, the kids, the town. Nothing. Stood out in a positive way. It was just…wasted.

It’s sad when I really want to say none of the characters in this film were needed or vital.

Bo and her brother Ro were completely useless. Bo’s job in the film, was to be called smart and head strong, passionate. While displaying no fucking intelligence what so ever in the entire movie. Her brother did exactly what he was meant to do from scene 1, turn against his sister because he’s not special like her. Her guy friend did nothing but die. Her best friends who care about helping save the town did nothing and died. Her father had one speech and died. The Sheriff. The Sheriff who murdered 15 kids and a teenager with the help of local farmers. Did one thing, growled, and died.

Eden…I will apologize to the actress as I am going to blame this on lack of direction and not her personally. I am sure they are a fine actress anywhere else.

But in this film…

Eden was boring, bored, and the most unenthusiastic villain.

When she is supposed to look evil? She’s just smirking.

When she’d filmed with chaos all around? She’s bored.

Giving speeches to her fellow kids? Reading lines.

There’s just….nothing.

She needed direction. Something! Anything to sell her character. But she had nothing. Not a single thing.

Even when her empire is  crumbling around her. She’s mildly miffed at this fact, but nothing else. At the end when she’s supposed to be crying and sad. She just looks like she’s pouty faced when she tells a fucking corn demon “I’m sorry”

Bo is even worse. She only has three faces. Constipated, mildly shocked, and smirky smirk.

The biggest sin of this film really is just how the story was told, and every moment they laid out thinking it was clever. Was just lazy, lazy in a way it wasn’t only predictable, it was just tiring.

You show a guy toss out a corn blade high out into the field. Into miles of endless corn. But your hero will be right next to it when she needs it? It happens in old movies. It’s still boring. But sure okay lets give that a pass.

Now explain how a woman soaked to a point we see her leaving a HUGE trail of gasoline as she runs off. Like a 1 foot across trail of gas behind her. How does a woman soaked in gasoline, driving a car leaking gasoline. End up on the roadside and pull off the “You really think I didn’t plan on being here like this with you here? YOU FOOOOOOOOOL” How.

How in the literal fuck. So she planned to drive off with the leaking gas car, to leave a trail of gasoline, while herself covered in gasoline. Only to set it on fire with a car lighter she somehow knew the car would have. While herself not being set on fire. While soaked head to toe in a vastly more flammable and toxic fuel….But lights everything else in gasoline that isn’t her or the car. Just the trail left by the car, and herself….

As a chef…

As a chef, we sometimes cook with alcohol. We also do so tableside as it creates a show for you the customer. Now. How do you set the alcohol on fire? Well lets add another example shall we? We also use charcoal grills. Which you give a few spirts of lighter fuel on before lighting it. Yes? How do you light that?

You don’t. You aren’t directly lighting the alcohol on fire in food. You aren’t directly lighting the fuel on your grill on fire. The flame reacts to the fumes. That is why when cooking and adding alcohol, we are taught to tilt the pan toward the heat source, or at table side, you put a match near the alcohol. The fumes ignite and the fire burns out the alcohol leaving behind the liquor. Just like your grill. This is why when they ignite, you get that WOOSH of fire.

I’d share a neat trick you can do with your lighter to create a fireball in your hand, but I don’t want anyone blaming me if they set themselves on fire. Just look up lighter tricks on youtube if you feel so inclined.

The point is. Bo absolutely should have burned and died. The car absolutely should’ve caught fire. But it didn’t because the laziest most unoriginal plot armor.

Seriously this isn’t even 80’s logic bad. This is just someone sitting in a room and thinking aloud ‘maybe she planned it all out and sets everything on fire. But the gas on her is…dried? By now? Who cares she lights the gas from the car and it works’

Bullshit.

A part of me. Genuinely wants, almost bordering on needs to believe. That originally Bo set herself and Eden on fire in that car, the car explodes because Hollywood, and ignites the trail of gas. Burning the corn and monster.

That would make sense. But playing it off like some grand scheme and gasoline losing its potency on Bo, but not from the car or the trail of gas she left from the barn? Fuck off.

And this isn’t even touching on the town. Seriously I’m controlling my ranting because this could go on for pages at this rate. But holy fuck.

This town, these people. Much like the film. Do not exist in reality.

City people who misunderstand rural towns so hard, that they create strawmen of strawmen. That’s about it.

These small towns live and die off farming. This is why ghost towns exist. You know evil Walmart and Super markets? That kill towns by forcing small local businesses to close down because they can’t compete? So the towns die? Farming towns can’t make money if they can’t sell their source of income. This is a problem going on where markets have a cosmetic standard for what vegetables can be sold in stores and which ones they throw away. Resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars being tossed out and left rotting. Killing jobs and towns.

But yeah, a corn growing town selling out to “Big Corn”, for all the money in the world, only to be screwed over and now selling their land and right to grow corn to the government for even MORE than all the money in the world. To busy counting their money versus caring about the kids who will starve.

Yeah…no.

Seriously what is so wrong about the original, or even Kings story. That this is the road you go down? It didn’t bring anything to the plate. It didn’t add anything. And hearing a kid give an empowered speech about saving the land, while under the influence of a demon telling her to kill people and brainwashing other kids to do the same? That’s somehow better? Is this a hipsters nightmare?

Was the monster created from the chemicals? Was it never really evil. But the byproduct of greed?

If so, why not make your own thing and call it something else?

There was a movie on Netflix I believe, not long ago that dealt with creatures inside a large cornfield that was killing people who roamed into it.

It worked. It was simple. No one called it compared it to Children of the Corn.

Had they called it that? And all you had were adults being killed by demon creatures in the corn? Yeah they’d be a bit let down and grumpy they watched a movie that obviously was made to keep the franchise rights a bit longer.

It’s doable, is my point.

I don’t even want to rant any more about this, I just want this over and done with. I really do. Honestly I wasn’t even joking at the end when I didn’t want to even write what happened. I just wanted to shut it off.

Really this film is just. Simply put. The fault of this film is that it won’t create villains, but make villains who turn others to violence.

Films do this now and then, and it nearly comes to the same results. In better hands it can work. But every other time. It’s just boring. You take simplicity and try to make it clever, and end up back in film school. The place your allowed to make mistakes.

The kids weren’t evil. The adults were. And a demon kind of got them to do its bidding because one girl was charismatic enough to convince them to do so. And in the end that girl wasn’t punished, she wasn’t taken by the demon, or killed by adults. She just walked off hand in hand with a sad hurt corn demon.

But you still want to toss out a last minute scare with her because oooo scary movie needs scary. Get fucked.

How about this.

You have a small Nebraska town. Everyone knows everybody. Business is good, Happy town. You got Bo getting ready to head out to the big city for school. Her dad fighting for farmers rights while the town mayor wants to tote the idea of big city money for corn, buying land from farmers for company run farms. Meanwhile some kids are acting a little funky. Other kids are noticing their friends, bullies. Older kids wondering off into the corn and coming back, different.

Kids go on a field trip to see one of these corn plants, or some stupid trip out to see how farmers farm, and a plane, or fuck that. A drone. A drone accidentally dumps chemicals down over the field of kids instead of its intended field. Boom 15 kids poisoned and killed, their teacher in critical condition.

The mayor can’t have this leaking out or it’ll ruin his plans for big money and automated farming. So he ask the sheriff to cover this up, blame it on something else, pay the teacher off. But kids on a nearby farm heard what happened, they saw it. Whatever it is in the corn is using that to trick the children. Convincing them the town no longer cares about them. They’ll kill the kids because they don’t respect them, they don’t love them. Anything to get the kids to surrender to its will so it can cloud their minds.

Slowly but surely Bo and others take notice of creepy staring kids. Kids killing animals and staring blankly, defiantly at figures of authority. They won’t bow down to them.

Bo and her family witness kids drag another kid off to the corn kicking and screaming. They try to warn others only to have that kid come back changed, denying what happened, saying they were just playing. Before long all the children are following  one child, the one chosen as the voice for this entity. Telling them all the bidding of this monster. What they need to do to please it, to make the corn grow.

As people start going missing, the corn fields are growing taller and thicker. Until its out of control and by then, when Bo and her family are trying to warn others of what they think is going on, after finding maybe a skeleton or half eaten body that tried escaping the corn field. They’re too late. The kids are organized. The day of reckoning is here. They march into the town, into their homes. They lock the doors and begin the slaughter. Adults are running screaming and trying to hide from their own kids. Those who run into the corn are devoured by He Who Walks Behind the Rows.

Bo and her family try to help others only to find it futile. Her mother dies trying to escape a gang of kids that hid inside their house. Dad is taken as a sacrifice for the corn. As her dad is strung up in offering. Bo and her brother run opposite paths bathing the ground in fields of fuel. Just as Dad is about to be sacrificed they set their fires. The corn monster roars and the kids take off in a panic to try and put out the fires. Bo and Ro. RoBo take off to rescue their dad. Only to square off against the leader of the murder kids club. Eden if you like. I don’t care who. Someone.

They square off and Eden tackles her to the ground trying to stab Bo. Dad comes over and tosses Eden off of his daughter, only to have her land on some farming equipment, impaling her. They watch as Bo dies, and as she does the corn stalks reach for her body and drag it off into the corn. RoBo and dad run to escape, only to face off against the return of Eden, an undead demon thing that scares even the children who now question their devotion to this creature they made into a god. Realizing it was pure evil. Everyone is running for their lives. Bo’s dad is attacked and flung into a barn. He finds a can of gas, and makes a heroic sacrifice. He rushes out with the gas, taking a corn stock on fire, and charges in toward the Eden creature. Exploding into flames and popcorn. RoBo and the surviving kids over look the field of chaos as it burns and the camera fades to black.

It's not pretty, it’s far from perfect. But goddamn at least it’s something reminiscent of the source and not just another project you slapped “Of the” on.

It’s bad when I am laughing realizing. Holy shit. Sharks of the Corn has more ideas and originality than this film. And THAT film worked!

They had people wearing fucking rubber mask, and used hand puppet sharks! And that was better than this!

Anything is better.

I hate when I repeat things, but it really does keep applying.

If you are going to remake something, retell something. Reimagine. Whatever. If you are going to take on a story or property that was meant to be shocking, had shocking subject matter, was prime for being messed up. Have the balls to commit to it and not giving a cliff notes version.

It really stood on in this a lot. They wouldn’t show the kids killing. I get that. But they also oddly did the violence in this film. A good deal of what happens in this film killing wise. Is never shown. It’s all done off camera.

One of the more gory deaths which, kind of didn’t make much sense, aside vaguely implying the preacher did ‘something’ bad. The kids drag him out, he covers his face, and the Eden plucks out his eyes with a sickle. The way its shot you see the girl sitting on his chest. You see a blade near his face. Camera cuts away, and next we are shown two fake eyes sitting on the preachers face as he screams. When Eden reaches down to tug his eyes out and hold them. It’s done off Camera as well. Again I can get that. But when you have the other guy get his face ripped off by a baseball bat? And you don’t hesitate showing that in full detail. But you pull back elsewhere? It feels odd. Maybe it was edited down and they took the scenes out? Maybe they compromised. I don’t want to believe everything was done confusingly for no reason. There had to be a reason.

I can’t say much about the music because it just wasn’t there. I mean I know it was? But I can’t recall any of it. Nothing stood out, nothing came off adding mood or scares to anything.

The acting was. Well they did what they could with what they had. I am sure they are all very fine actors. But this film was just. That which should have kept walking and not stopped.

This is also not the directors first rodeo. Granted I did kinda laugh when I saw he directed and wrote a few films I couldn’t stand but I had an ex that loved the films. Like Ultraviolet, Equilibrium, the Total Recall remake no one remembers being made but it was, and it did. Same with the Point Break remake that no one remembers. But it was, and it did.

I don’t want to say this is a case of you can’t remake old movies in a modern way. I just want to believe they didn’t get the story.

It happens a lot with horror. Hell it happens in other genres today. It’s why some remakes completely miss the mark. The people who made it didn’t understand or care to the story. Instead they look at what the film was known for. What scenes stood out that people remember. They keep those, flub the rest and play member berries with you. Sometimes it can be entertaining. Absolutely. Other times, it just turns painful to watch.

This was one of those films.

None of it felt right and whats weirder still. This film came out in 2020.

But its marketed as 2023.

You google it, you’ll find Children of the Corn 2020. But you go to IMDB, or look for posters, articles. Comes up 2023.

It’s the film that should not be. But was, and is.

Let me be the hero to sacrifice themselves, and save you from this film. Just let it burn in the field of corn and walk away from it. There is far better out there, and even some terrible movies that are worth it.

Seriously go see Sharks of the Corn. That movie is entertaining, and stupid fun. This was just. Bland and bad. I guess, grats on our first huge rant of the month, and to think, I really. Really would’ve kept going. I had to step out for a bit, and then? It just wasn’t worth it. The less said now the better. If anything this deserves another King classic line, Sometimes dead is better.

Don’t see this. Please. Even the sequels had something more than this.

So until next time. If you see kids playing in the corn, forcing their friends to walk a plank and leap off a water tower, slaughter a pig so they can paint a death pit with red, and they walk around covered in blood? Just keep driving on and don’t give a shit, because Bo certainly didn’t and now she’s dead. Goodnight.