Review: Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)

I love how the *second* film in the series already has the word "final" in its title. Talk about calling the game early. I can't explain it but I have a strange fascination with these bad Children of the Corn sequels. Mostly, I think I'm a sucker for the monster hiding in the corn at the end that they pretty much never show. "He who walks behind the rows." Sounds cool, and they do The Thing trick where you have something moving under the ground (I wonder if they also pulled a bowling ball beneath the surface). I would argue there actually are some good things in this movie. You get some nice gory deaths like the glasses guy bleeding out of every orifice on his face during the church sermon. Ned Romero who plays Frank Redbear, the Native American professor, is a fantastic actor, and despite the unnecessary cliche coda with him (good intent but a little hokey), he pretty much steals the show. I love the clever bit of dialogue where he says the earth isn't in balance then the reporter asks him if that's what happened in Gatlin. Heck no, those kids went psycho and murdered their parents! Not an exact quote but it's a hilarious little moment. The young girl in it is pretty and they give her a silly showering-under-a-waterfall scene so you can get the obligatory swimsuit shots (hey gotta keep that male audience interested). The acting really isn't that bad although the evil leader of the kids could be better at times but what do you expect? I do actually like the dad and son characters. Even the lady in charge of their bed and breakfast is charming. Hard to believe a simple short story from Stephen King would go on to spawn so many sequels but I guess it's not that surprising in Hollywood. This is probably the best of the sequels but I just bought the 6-film collection so I can dig through all the rest to make sure (I'm a glutton for punishment). I've seen some of them before but they all kinda blend together (and the result ain't pretty). For some odd reason, I thought Redbear was in the first film too but I was wrong. Shows you what I know.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Here is a fun exploitation flick overflowing with style and energy. The girls all have a ton of screen presence, and the story makes you anxious what will happen next because you know things could go off the rails at any moment. Supposedly made for a budget of only $45,000, I would argue every penny is up on the screen. The music is catchy too, setting an irresistible tone. Of course, they're not taking themselves seriously with this so neither should we. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. I've seen quite a few movies lately but none had this much spirit. I wish we'd get more movies like this nowadays. All our micro-budget indies seem to be way too dour. I'm sure there must be some lighter ones but doesn't seem like we get fun exploitation like this anymore. Deathgasm was pretty awesome although more horror than this but both have tons of charm.