A journalist and his son travel to Nebraska to investigate the mysterious town of Gatlin where, unbeknownst to them, a murderous cult of children are still waiting in the corn fields.
All the kids in a town over night become feverish and have convulsions. The next day they start to become evil, change their names for those of kids killed long ago, and then start killing ... See full summary »
Director:
Greg Spence
Stars:
Naomi Watts,
Jamie Renée Smith,
Karen Black
A boy preacher named Isaac goes to Gatlin, Nebraska and gets all the children to murder every adult in town. A young couple on a road trip stop in Gatlin to report a murder and seek help, but the town seems deserted. They are soon trapped in Gatlin with little chance of getting out alive.Written by
Éamonn Green
In the original story, Isaac and Malachi's real names were William Renfrew and Craig Boardman, respectively. See more »
Goofs
When Burt and Vicky are driving around and end up at the gas station, the sun is near sunset. But a few scenes later on, the sun is high like it's late morning, even though it takes place later on in the same day. See more »
The director's initial cut was much longer than the version that eventually made it to theaters and video. Among the missing footage:
A longer prologue where several other adults are killed on-camera, most noticeably a police deputy at the local police station whose throat is slashed and then stabbed in the chest, and a farmer who is hacked to death outside his barn by a group of pick-ax wielding teen kids.
A scene between Sarah and Job's parents before the slaughter. They talk over the breakfast table about Sarah's drawings of the upcoming massacre and how they think something awful is about to happen.
A scene where Isaac prays to He Who Walks Behind The Rows only to receive a horrific vision of his impending fate.
The murder rate is as high as an elephant's eye in this flaccid adaptation of Stephen King's short story. While driving through Nebraska en route to a new job, medico Burt (Peter Horton) and his wife Vicky (a PR-Terminator Linda Hamilton) nearly run over a mutilated boy who staggers from the cornfields. Seeking help, they enter the town of Gatlin, whose under-20 residents have butchered their parents per the decree of junior-grade holy roller Isaac (John Franklin), who preaches the word of a being called "He Who Walks Behind the Rows." King's original story (from his 1978 collection Night Shift) was a lean and brutal melange of Southern-Gothic atmosphere and E.C. Comics-style gore, which script Greg Goldsmith effectively neutralizes by adding a youthful narrator (a grating Robbie Kiger) and putting an upbeat spin on the story's morbid conclusion. Fritz Kiersch's direction is TV-movie flat, with the sole inspired moment (hideous religious iconography glimpsed during a bloody "service") delivered as a throwaway. Aside from Horton and Courtney Gains (as Isaac's hatchet man Malachai), the performances are dreadful, and the depiction of the Lovecraftian monster-god as a sort of giant gopher inspires more laughter than terror. Amazingly, the film spawned six sequels; Franklin (Cousin Itt in the Addams Family films) later appeared in and wrote 1999's Children of the Corn 666.
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The murder rate is as high as an elephant's eye in this flaccid adaptation of Stephen King's short story. While driving through Nebraska en route to a new job, medico Burt (Peter Horton) and his wife Vicky (a PR-Terminator Linda Hamilton) nearly run over a mutilated boy who staggers from the cornfields. Seeking help, they enter the town of Gatlin, whose under-20 residents have butchered their parents per the decree of junior-grade holy roller Isaac (John Franklin), who preaches the word of a being called "He Who Walks Behind the Rows." King's original story (from his 1978 collection Night Shift) was a lean and brutal melange of Southern-Gothic atmosphere and E.C. Comics-style gore, which script Greg Goldsmith effectively neutralizes by adding a youthful narrator (a grating Robbie Kiger) and putting an upbeat spin on the story's morbid conclusion. Fritz Kiersch's direction is TV-movie flat, with the sole inspired moment (hideous religious iconography glimpsed during a bloody "service") delivered as a throwaway. Aside from Horton and Courtney Gains (as Isaac's hatchet man Malachai), the performances are dreadful, and the depiction of the Lovecraftian monster-god as a sort of giant gopher inspires more laughter than terror. Amazingly, the film spawned six sequels; Franklin (Cousin Itt in the Addams Family films) later appeared in and wrote 1999's Children of the Corn 666.