Thursday 3 August 2023

CHILDREN OF THE CORN (2020) - Digital Review

Stephen King's original short story CHILDREN OF THE CORN has spawned numerous films over the years. From the original 1984 adaptation, and it's countless (mostly unrelated) sequels, to the 2009 remake for the Sci-Fi channel. 

This new adaptation, originally made for the SHUDDER network and available now from all good Digital outlets, updates the original story to a present day setting, where a remote farming community in the American Mid-West, find they have bigger problems than just their crops failing.

An experimental chemical fertiliser, that was supposed to increase crop yields, has instead turned their corn bad. Faced with financial ruin, the locals decide instead to destroy their crops, so that they can take advantage of lucrative government subsidies. 

This greatly enrages the young children of the town, who are being lead by a psychotic 12 year old girl named Eden, who instead plot to kill the adult townsfolk and use their blood to fertilise the soil.

Young Teenager Boleyn Williams (Elena Kampouris) is initially spared from being sacrificed with the others, as they don't consider her to be an adult. And so the fate of the town rests on whether she can escape and get help, or find some way of breaking Eden's malign influence over the other children of the town.

Written and Directed by Kurt Wimmer, who's probably best known as a screen writer on films like “Equilibrium”, “Law Abiding Citizen” and "Salt", the film has very little in common with the original short story and seems to borrow various plot points from the first 3 films in the original series.

Whilst I had high hopes for the film, I was left feeling somewhat disappointed. Not much in the way of suspense or action. Though I was pleasantly surprised to see Australian actor Bruce Spence (the Gyro Captain from Mad Max 2) turning up in this as the town's pastor (as the film was actually shot in Australia).

That's not to say the film isn't worth a watch of course, but it's really one for die-hard Stephen King fans only.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN (2020) is available now at Digital Outlets.

View the Trailer on YouTube.

Watch the film on Amazon.co.uk

 



No comments:

Post a Comment