Review: Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)

Prepare for a lot of cameos in this one: Kane Hodder (Jason! Hell yes!), Fred Williamson (From Dusk Till Dawn!), and David Carradine. Plus, Eva Mendes in one of her first film roles. I think it's obvious this sequel was made by a horror fan but it didn't do much for me unfortunately. It has that same generic setup of some college kids who take a wrong turn and end up in Slasherland. The main evil child isn't believable at all. You hate him immediately (and not in a good way). The cameos are nice and do help it a bit but it's pretty dull. There is a grain silo with flames coming out of it, which I guess is their version of the corn monster, but it's disappointing. Typical cult thing except Carradine's character is used as their puppet spokesperson. These Children of the Corn sequels are pretty forgettable. It's just crazy they made so many of them, and I have to be nuts for watching them. We really need another Friday the 13th. Just have fun with it and don't take it so seriously.

Review: Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996)

Well, you get Naomi Watts this time in one of her very early roles. Does that help? Not really. She plays an assistant to a local doctor. A job she gets when coming home to visit her ill mother. They show how all these regular children get sick at the same time (fevers for everybody!). After which, they become the titular corn kids (could you imagine that awful title? please don't but how about the prequel Corn Babies... I know, I know, cinematic gold... trust me). This entry feels quite slow and boring. They must have taken the budget down to zero. You get absolutely no corn monster. People give number three a lot of crap but man that movie goes bugnuts monster massacre in the last 30 min and it is awesome. I had no idea how spoiled I was until I watched this. Number two is definitely the best sequel so far with three being super close due to the finale alone but I'm afraid it's all downhill from here (maybe five is better? hope so... I'm a sucker I know). This film feels like an unnecessary tedious origin story. Almost like a prequel to the original even though it isn't. I guess it's attempting to inject more drama and suspense but I don't think any of it works. A low-grade sequel like this should at least be fun and good grief, I want my corn monster! Sorry, "he who walks behind the rows." One of the dang kids is supposed to be "he who walks behind the rows" here... ugh. You don't even get the bowling ball rolling underneath the ground. Zip. Zilch. The doctor does get cut in half... alright. Apparently, the doctor's office is haunted by the evil corn kids because they randomly kill Naomi's friend there too. But this movie is seriously lacking in every department. Did the people making this watch the other films? The audience is light years ahead from the very beginning, which is a horrible idea. It makes your film immediately boring like it opens with the mom's dream or future prediction of some evil kids coming. Whatever. We already know that's going to happen. Quit wasting our time. Ah who am I kidding? Clearly I have some time to waste if I'm watching this :) Did I just type a smiley emoji? Did I just type "emoji?" Oh please God, kill me. Kill me now. What have I done? What demons hath the internet spawned.

Review: Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)

Correction: they definitely show the corn monster in number three. Excuse me "he who walks behind the rows." Corn monster doesn't sound nearly as cool. This film is sadly weaker than part two. The opening makes you wonder if your brain gave up and forgot the second one because there's no continuity. All of a sudden you get two new kids in a cornfield with a drunken abusive father... ok. I had to double check and make sure both Joshua and Eli are new characters. Yep, they are. This sequel is very so-so until about the last ten or twenty minutes. Then it just goes nuts. You get an ugly huge latex beast that resembles the mutated dog in The Thing if it had been accidentally crushed by the prop guy. I love it, and the body count goes through the roof. All of a sudden, you get corn tentacles flying between a girl's legs (WTF), tentacles using sickles to hack people up, a guy getting hung to death by a tentacle (it's a sight to see), etc. Talk about a frenzy of blood and death. More than makes up for what came before, and it's funny too because you think the movie is over when all this insanity explodes onscreen. Genius ending but you know they're going to completely ignore the last teaser of the corn going worldwide. I'm quite certain the next one isn't set overseas. By the way, I have to mention the absolutely brutal demise we get for Malcom. Why does this poor guy have to be so eviscerated? I mean damn. He was a good sympathetic character and they make his death so gruesome like they just had to top Predator with the ultimate nasty spinal fatality. Geez. Couldn't Eli go out that way? That kid got annoying fast and I thought the demonic brat in two was tiresome. At least, they showed Micah getting possessed like he had a little extra dimension to him but this kid is too young and baby faced to be in charge. And what was with his outlandish fireball power? Eh whatever it's always going to be hard to pull off an evil kid. Done right like The Exorcist and it's unnerving (Dick Smith's phenomenal makeup went a long way though) but if it's done wrong, laugh-out-loud cheesy.

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.