‘Children of the Corn’ is a movie about a cult of feral children who follow a corn-based religion in an abandoned Nebraska town

‘Children of the Corn’ is a movie about a cult of feral children who follow a corn-based religion in an abandoned Nebraska town

They worship an entity known as ‘He Who Walks Behind The Rows’.

Here is a totally unnecessary adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 short story about killer kids who slaughter all the adults in town as a sacrifice to a pagan corn god. Unbelievably, King’s 10,000-odd word story has now spawned 11 movies, beginning with the 1984 cult classic starring Linda Hamilton. This new one kicks off with the whiff of something interesting: the idea that kids today might want to slit their parents’ throats for leaving the planet in such a mess. But the script is nowhere near clever enough to exploit the juicy potential for social commentary. Instead, it quickly gets silly and unscary.

The only young person unaffected is Bo (Elena Kampouris), an eco activist about to leave town for university. She wonders if toxins in the fertiliser are causing the little ones to hallucinate. But no: the explanation for their murderous spree is an evil demon festering in the corn fields. God only knows why, but the film-makers decide to actually show the corn monster: half man, half plant, he looks a bit like Stick Man from the Julia Donaldson books, and is about as terrifying.