Children of the Corn (2009)

Read my review of the original here.

Trailer: 

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: PEAS??!! There’s only one side dish these kids are willing to eat for dinner!

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• I’ve never understood the title of this song, “Bringing in the Sheeps”?
• Right away this movie makes a little more sense than the original as they have more kids of various ages and not all teenagers like the town once had one giant orgy in the town square where everyone got pregnant at the same time.
• Oh the main guy is this one guy. You know, that guy. I don’t think he was ever higher than the fifth lead in a crappy TV show.
• Wow Burt and Vicky hate each other. I recently took a long road trip with my wife and we didn’t hate each other this much. Maybe like 92% of this.
• Ok is a kid getting run over by a car supposed to be that funny?
• I know we’ve just started but the actress playing Vicky, Kandyse McClure, is possibly a bottom 5 worst actress I’ve ever seen?
• I have read this story, and I remember that they were having marital problems, but I don’t remember them hating each other this much. Of course, I barely remember the beginning of this sentence.
• Burt notices that the boy’s throat is cut, but how can he be 100% positive it wasn’t the bottom of his car that made that wound?
• You know one thing someone really can’t do? Move quietly through a bunch of corn.
• Burt cannot stop mentioning about how he was in Vietnam. You have to move on, Burt.
• One thing we can’t move on from is how abysmal Vicky’s acting is. 
• I think the look of this movie is called the “piss filter,” which is typically used in scenes set in the Middle East. I think it’s supposed to be giving this movie a Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of feel but it absolutely does not.
• I love how Burt and Vicky are casually talking like there isn’t a murdered boy in their trunk.
• Oh I don’t have to explain that there is a town called Gatlin full of crazy religious kids who killed all the adults in town, right? Ok good, that’s about all there is.

BEHOLD!

• Man, the kids preaching is unbelievably boring.
• These headstones look like a giant slice of stale bread spraypainted gray.
• Burt just asked Vicky, “What’s wrong?” Are you fucking kidding?
• Even though I already know this story I dislike Burt and Vicky so much that I really don’t care what happens to them.
• And they just ignored and left a poor dog in the street. Screw these two. Get ’em, children!
• From my review of the original that still applies: “I truly don’t understand how nobody has come to check on any of the adults in this town. Did none of them have jobs or relatives outside of town? Maybe this gets explained later but I’m not holding my corn chips.”
• Holy shit this movie is 99% them arguing. She’s constantly giving him shit about Vietnam and he’s constantly telling her to shut up. Why are they even on this road trip together?
• She just said it was a “second honeymoon.” But they despise each other!
• Baby Isaac looks ludicrous in that huge hat.

It’s funny because it’s bigger than a normal hat.

• Vicky is being attacked by the kids while Burt is in a church reading out loud from a Bible for absolutely no reason. Vicky is screaming and honking the horn 50 feet away but even though there are no other sounds in this deserted town Burt doesn’t hear a thing.
• Oh Vicky firing the shotgun gets his attention, but none of the other louder sounds that were just made for 10 minutes straight.
• OK YOU WERE IN VIETNAM WE FUCKING GET IT BURT!
• Baby Isaac is giving Vicky a run for her money in the acting department, but since he’s only 18 months old I’ll give him a pass.
• Jake Busey was born to play the role of Malachai, and even though he would have been 37 at the time of filming, I still would have been ok with it.
• This movie is about as thrilling as driving by an actual corn field.
• Oh anyway Vicky is seemingly murdered and they children chased Burt into the corn, and there’s not a ton of the movie left. Enthralling.
• I’m willing to bet that all of these kids are the director’s kids.
• Oh good Burt is having ‘Nam flashbacks while in the corn. WE. GET. I. T.
• Oh a sex ritual in front of all the children That’s nice. Where is that in the Bible?
• Oh, boobs? Weird, SyFy can do that? This is like a full-on Skinemax scene here. With small children watching.

“Wait: Children? Sex? Cornrows??”

• Meanwhile, Burt’s still in the corn. This is fun.
• Now he’s getting attacked by it. A-maize-ing.
• He finds a crucified Vicky (who can’t even play dead right because she’s clearly breathing), and then he’s attacked by He Who Walks Behind the Rows, which as you may recall, was the absolute worst special effect of all time in the original, but this time it’s not even a special effect, but a god damn camera movement, which is somehow even worse.
• And they crucify Burt too, which may have been interesting if it weren’t offscreen. The end. At least that’s a more interesting ending with Burt and Vicky dying (which is faithful to the story) compared to the happy Disneyesque ending of the original. Especially since this version of Burt and Vicky sucked cornballs.

Final Thoughts: Just a waste of time and good corn. I said this the first time around but this story has a lot of potential as a gritty and gory grindhouse feature directed by someone who has a clue what they’re doing, like Rob Zombie 15 years ago would have been perfect for this. Maybe that will still happen one day, and it won’t be so corny.

Score: 1.5 Tours in ‘Nam (out of 10)

Which was better?: The original had a better feel and better acting, although so does your average cat food commercial.