Children of the Corn

At first, I wasn't going to touch this motion picture.  Not with a ten-foot pole, a tentpole, a utility pole or any other kind of pole.  As far as I'm concerned, I have done my due diligence.  Corn and its derivatives?  No concern of mine.  But then I thought back to a late-90's Christmas party whereupon I was gifted 1984's Children of the Corn on VHS.  Did I ever really give it a fair shot?  And what about the relative who endowed me this demure pittance (a somewhat-distant cousin, if I recall)?  Does...well, does he remember buying the goddamn thing?  It's debatable.  In all likelihood, none of this bullshit matters.  The point remains...I was curious.

I'm not curious anymore.  Corn is just as mediocre as I suspected.  Maybe a half-Z'Dar better.  Maybe!  Probing this series with the most sterile of colanders, I have been continually floored that it has lasted so long, and with no end in sight, it seems.  Eight sequels mothered from a nothing thriller?  Oh, and a remake???  The Stephen King association is the only factor I can chide.  Someone must be held accountable.  You can't pin the blame on a vanguard, groundbreaking premise.  Pop culture has had fun with the "evil kids" trope, but it wasn't invented by this film or its source material.  Just a few years prior, The Children set killer brats loose on a small town beleaguered by a nuclear gas leak.  That was schlock, though.

I would have to be blind not to see that Corn is a legitimate studio crop (I feel guilty; that word play is tantamount to masturbation).  Every once in awhile, it's nice to watch a movie that resembles, y'know, a movie.  Linda Hamilton is game as Vicky, one-half of our outlander couple.  The other half is Burt, as portrayed by Peter Horton.  I have to hand it to them.  They're excellent as normal, happy fuckers.  They know how to play off of each other and their chemistry is palpable.  Yes, they are prone to making dumb decisions, but if they don't, we aren't left with much.  The genre feeds on character folly.

Random scenes are narrated by a motherfu--okay, I need to muzzle my profanity.  This saga of sorts is getting to me, and I can't let it win.  Anyway, the narration is incredibly useless.  An event will transpire, then a dopey jackanape will tell us that said event transpired.  Can you appreciate how hard it is for me to use semi-coherent English to describe Children of the Corn?  Eventually, I will break down and resort to "the shit's fucking shit."  What's sad is that I haven't really centralized my rage on the film's most prominent drawback.  It's boring!  It takes way too many minutes to get where the script is going to go.  Suspense?  Not a chance.  It's dawning on me that I'm the wrong horror freak to be reviewing Children of the Cunt.

Somehow, I've typed a smattering of positive remarks.  Buh.  Life is clear now.  I have emptied my chamber (or barrel...I don't know anything about guns) as it relates to Corn criticism.  There is nothing else to say.  I am moving on, and beek-bum-whang, there are a squillion b-toasters that I'm looking forward to penetrating.  Sexually.  Did enough damage here.  You can always review the others yourself.  Or you can suck all of my cocks.  You yellow, greas--wow, this franchise changes you on a molecular level, doesn't it?