Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Elena Kampouris, Kate Moyer, Callan Mulvey, Bruce Spence, Joe Klocek, Stephen Hunter, Jayden McGinlay
Intro:
… a solid new addition to a worn-out horror franchise.
It all comes back to Stephen King, of course. His 1977 short story Children of the Corn was adapted into a 1984 movie of the same name to lukewarm notices and surprising box-office. Almost a dozen sequels and spinoffs later, here’s a new version of the classic tale, this time directed and scripted by Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium), who returns to the director’s chair for the first time in 14 years.
Set in a small dying Nebraskan town, Children of the Corn tells the story of a psychopathic young girl named Eve (Kaye Moyer), who leads a deadly cabal of children in a murderous uprising against the town’s adults, whose greed-driven decision making led to the ruin of the once prosperous corn fields. The only person standing in Eve’s way is college-bound idealist Boleyn (Elena Kampouris), yet things become even more dangerous when a sinister supernatural force makes its presence known.
While the original Children of the Corn had a strong religious angle to its zealous child villains, this latest version has a new breed of fanaticism in the form of environmental radicalism gone homicidal. Moyer’s Eve comes across as a blend of Greta Thunberg and Damien (The Omen), with her “how dare you?!” intensity made even more startling with the homicidal bloodlust that follows in her path.
The violence in Children of the Corn can be startling, with all matter of eye-popping, limb-shredding and mass grave burying kills featured throughout the film. Wimmer, unfortunately, also relies a little too much on cheap jump-scares to make an impact.
Where Wimmer’s take on Children of the Corn works best is in its portrayal of the generation divide in a small, dying town that has sold its soul and lost its mind. Where the adults have succumbed to nihilistic corruption, and the children are driven by a fanatical evil, it is the young adults as exemplified by Kampouris’ Boleyn who portrays passion, reason, and hope that the worst of today can become a better tomorrow.
Of course, such lofty dreams turn into a blood drenched nightmare which, in Wimmer’s hands, results in a solid new addition to a worn-out horror franchise.
