Children of the Corn (Blu-ray)
| release date | March 9 1984 |
| studio | Anchor Bay/Starz |
| director | Fritz Kiersch |
| writer | George Goldsmith, Stephen King |
| starring | Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstron |
| rating | R |
| tagline | An adult nightmare. |
| trailer 1 | Trailer #1 |
3 Comments
I’ve been watching this movie for years. Love the opening scene at the diner. Looking forward to the sci-fi remake.
Loved this movie when i was a kid!
When I first herd the synopsis, a town that has been brutally murdered and taken over by kids, I honestly thought it would be a comedy. It’s not as funny as it sounds. This movie scared the hell out of me. This was the movie the turned me to the “Stephen King Side of the Literary World.” This movie had everything a horror should have and also a kid’s best fantasy, aside from the whole “killing your parents and slashing the entire town” thing.
The reason why this horror movie works is that it could happen. It’s not so much jump out scary but more of the disturbing scary. Here are 12-year-olds and 9-year-olds all the way up to 17-year-olds killing their parents in the name of a false corn god. It could happen and there are religions that have brainwashed kids into murdering people in the name of their false god. Given the fact that this town is completely secluded from any major civilian population, that just adds to the sense of helplessness. You can’t go anywhere because there is nothing for miles except corn.
One of the other elements that make this horror seem more disturbing is the ritual and the ceremonies that these kids hold to praise “He Who Walks Behind the Rows.” The ceremony for “The Man in Blue” and the sacrificing ceremonies are all so crazy and weird. This movie hits so close to pseudo-Christianity it’s scary. The casting and the acting are great. Courtney Gains who played Malachai did a great job playing the deranged teen that heavily believes in his false god. His catch phrase “Outlanders!” is classic. John Franklin who plays Isaac Chroner doesn’t need to act, his character is elegant and quiet enough to where his looks puts the fear into you head.
Overall, this movie is child’s dream on ecstasy. If you enjoy disturbing horror and general weirdness, you’ll like this movie. It gets gory pretty early and becomes hard to watch so I am warning you ahead of time.
This movie is a great horror classic, but not exactly the scariest. Still an awesome movie, and anyone who hasn’t seen this movie isn’t a true horror fan.
Just ok
this is deff a classic and should be watch by all horror fans at least once BUT its not the best
This movie has quite a good atmosphere, the haunting score is excellent and it starts off quite strongly with a riveting opening scene.
The thing is that it is very slow and not much seems to be happening in the movie. The ending is a bit of a letdown after all that buildup, the special effects are just not convincing at all.
As for the children, it’s better when you don’t see them because children are just not scary to me.
The acting is quite good, it has Linda Hamilton which is the most memorable adult performance in the movie (unless you count Isaac) and the kid who plays Molokai (sp?).
I’ve always been a fan of most of Stephen Kings work and or the most part liked this film. I didn’t agree with all the follow-ups but I enjoyed the original. I guess there is a remake coming out, if Stephen King has nothing to do with writing the film I fear for the worst. 90% of remakes these days are destroying classics
This was a pretty great film i think it could have been better but still very good. hope the remakes better.
You know what I dont know if I like this movie. Becouse I watched the 2009 reinterpritation first and I have something to compare it to. This film is to much of a intended crowd pleaser in my humble opinion. This film did not stir me up at all. Their was allot less child killing in this version of the film. Their was also less gore. The concept is simple demonic children led by a child that just might be the antichrist overthroughing and murdering the adults thinking their doing the lords work. I know one things for sure they are answering to a higher power. Linda Hamilton is in this film a washed up movie icon from the past. She can reserect a giant ape and distroy robots. But when it comes to killing children she couldnt do it to save her life I give this film a 4/10
This film was good. I like it. Normally the adult(s) try to kill the kids but this film reversed that. The kids worship a sort of God if you will. Except that the God is evil. He makes them kill the Adults. I like these movies. And ‘Who Can Kill A Child?’ is just as good. Made Before COTC still very good. Same thing. Children Kill all Adults then a Bunch of Adults come along and then they try and kill the chilldren. That is what happens in COTC. And that is why i like it!!!
children committing murder… awesome
For a blu-ray release of a movie that is 26 years old, Anchor Bay did a solid job of presenting the film with a solid picture that takes a little of the rust off of it.
I think my nostalgia for that “scary” movie I saw as a child, about a cult of children who killed their adults and worshiped a creature in the cornfield vastly outweighed the actual quality that I found here. Certainly Malachi, the world’s most creepy ginger-villain is still suitably creepy and of course the general plot, particularly the beginning of the movie are still effective.
Unfortunately, I found the second act of the movie, especially the ending to be terrible. I almost feel like I owe an apology for my grip about the recent remake’s ending as it was far better than this sugar coated crap studio ending provided here.
While Children of the Corn on Blu-ray may look fairly decent for it’s age, the movie itself tend to fall flat. Outside of buffs like myself who like to look back on what we used to define as scary, Children of the Corn is reserved solely for those who truly loved it.
As someone said before me children committing murder classic
Weak adaptation of Stephen King’s brilliant short story. Though there is some great atmosphere, a nice soundtrack and a pretty neat cast, there are also many boring and unsuspenseful scenes, poor effects, huge plot holes and a pretty shitty ending.
Disappointing.
Stephen King is the most amazing writer ever lived. I adore his books and he’s my favorite author. I can’t really pick a favorite book from him cause to be honest I haven’t read a lot of his books just a few. Movies wise Children Of The Corn is by far the best, creepy kids chillin’ in the corn field can’t get any better then that! Children Of The Corn came out in 1984 so you get the mediocre acting and cheesy special affects all pulled together to make a super fun movie. You don’t need big name actors and actresses and a special affects team to make the movie good. I love the 1980′s horror movies cause their classics and I’m a sucker for a classic movie.
The movie is based in Gaitlin Nebraska where a couple drive through trying to find someone to ask for directions. In the book their married on the verge of divorce and in the movie their just dating and the guy wont propose. A boy preacher named Isaac came to Gaitlin and convinced the kids to murder all the adults. Every year on their 19Th birthday they sacrifice themselves to He Who Walks Behind The Rows so in other words the Devil. Isaac mentions to the kids in the corn field how he had a dream where the Lord came to him and told him that he will send outlanders, a man and a woman so they can be sacrificed. The movie continues with the couple trying to escape Gaitlin alive. This movie is just so awesome and everyone should watch it. I remember the first time I saw it on T.V. I fell in love, it was a true masterpiece.
Yeah it’s cheesy but come on it was made in 1984 what do you expect. All my friends at work tease me on how much I love this movie cause they think it’s so dumb. It’s no where near dumb it’ll keep you entertained from the time it starts till the time it ends. I don’t care what anyone says Children Of The Corn is bad ass. I can’t help but smile every time I watch it cause it’s just delightful. I give this movie 5 out of 5 Skulls!
Better than average, but still one of King’s less powerful adaptations from the early works. Simple premise made oddly evil with the early gore slaughter of the old people int he town, how the children are alone and oppressed, and Courtney Gains as Malachi and John Franklin as Issac. Malakai just looked evil, but Issac – Frankin actually being a man in his 20′s – put a twang on the part of this supernatural child leader that made the whole film seem tainted by something dark. Got under your skin in a slight manner. Decent 80′s horror film thats no loss, and a good alternate dose of Linda Hamilton for those who dug her in the TERMINATOR films.
I love Stephen King’s work, but I really thought this movie was terrible and extremely corny in some parts… pardon the pun… It just felt like a jumbled mess, like the director didn’t know what to do so he just said “fuck it, let’s just finish the damn thing”. The end feels very hurried and not thought out. It’s just a mess… Having said that, I LOVE the original story by Stephen King!! It was extremely creepy!!… I was really disappointed when the film didn’t come close to living up to the original story
I loved this movie, it was sooo much better than the book and remake. The cast and crew did an incredible job creating the solitary and chilling atmosphere in the Gatlin town, considering they had a budget of less than a million dollars. The music is awesome too!!
it’s gotta be hard to make a movie out of a twenty page short story, and even though the story is better than the movie, i still enjoyed this alot. creepy fuckin town, only in the bible belt.
Best film as a kid.
definatly a cult classic
It’s only right not to blame Stephen King for a mess such as “Children of the Corn”. After all, he did not write, produce, or direct the film, now did he? King did write the short story, which serves as the basis for this film, but as I said; he is not to blame for the adaptation’s failure. The entire film is fixated on children committing violent acts towards adults. They’re not the most grisly of acts, but they still come without reason. This film seems to know that I’m OK with violence in movies, but it forgets the part about substance, which I need in order to enjoy ANY film. Substance can come in so many forms, but man, this film has none. It is a horror film meant to provoke, disturb, and make audiences cringe. I think I was supposed to “feel” something by the time it ended, but alas, the only thing I “felt” was not a cringe or a shiver; it was a yawn, coming from my very mouth.
A cult of evil, violent children begin to kill all the adults in a town, starting with a diner. They don’t stop there, and go on to kill every single adult in the small town which they live in. But why are they killing? This is the one thing that is explained; they are killing adults because their cult worships an demi-god sort of entity, which may resemble Satan in one way or another.
A guy named Burt and his girlfriend Vicky are thrown in the middle of these practices when they pass through the little town. They soon meet two kids who have been captured, but have not yet succumbed to the cult; and together, they aim to bring down the band of murderous children.
As for the murderous children, well, they’re heartless and pretentiously relentless. There’s not a whole lot of fear that comes our way when we see them, partially because the film essentially tells us before-hand that nothing genuinely horrific is going to happen. And nothing genuinely horrific DOES happen, rendering this film useless, boring, and stupid. It is the worst kind of horror movie; the kind that does not scare us or even set up a tight atmosphere. The worst part of that is the fact that this movie tries so desperately to be good, but alas, it is not. We don’t care about these people who are caught up in the situation, and due to a lack of proper back-story, we don’t care much about the situation either. Perhaps more is learned in the sequels, but I don’t plan to venture beyond this installment. You’ve got a pretty stupid and problematic movie when the best you can say about it is that it has decent photography, and I’m not lying when I say this. This movie does not look bad, but oh man, does it FEEL bad! As the tagline for this film suggests, “Children of the Corn” is an “adult nightmare”. They got that part right, because this thing is so boring that it’s frightening to think that people can make movies like this and fail so miserably. I don’t hate this movie because it’s too gruesome, disturbing, or disgusting ; I hate it because it does not have a brain, and once again, Stephen King deserves a better movie for his wholesome and well-written story. The premise is rich, but these corn-fields are not filled with the same kind of inspiration and entertainment. No “Children of the Corn” film can offer up such a thing, and that’s why this film is so easily avoidable.
even though it is loosely based on the novel, its still a pretty good film and i think that the religious undertone gives the viewers enough shivers down their spine.
Love this movie! A classic.
This movie freaked me out the remake to his made me want to rip my eyes out.
This is such a great movie, much better than the book. The book was boring and the couple in it were annoying.
The filmmakers take a leaf out of John Carpenter and Alfred Hitchcock’s book and keep the audience on the edge of their seats when nothing is going on onscreen, just like Stanley Kubrick did in The Shining and Stuart Rosenberg did with The Amityville Horror. The whole thing works amazingly well too. Additionally, I really enjoyed the soundtrack, which prolonged the suspense all the way through.
What’s amazing about this movie is that it was made for only 800,000 dollars and 500 thousand of that money went to Stephen King for the rights. So essentially the film was made for only 300,000 dollars, which is amazing. Much better than the remake.