Rating: R | Runtime: 93 minutes
Release Date: March 3rd, 2023 (USA)
Studio: RLJE Films / Shudder
Director(s): Kurt Wimmer
Writer(s): Kurt Wimmer / Stephen King (short story)

It’s past my bedtime.

You have to at least give writer/director Kurt Wimmer credit for trying something new. Rather than follow in the footsteps of the 1984 adaptation of Stephen King’s short story Children of the Corn, he decides to throw the entire plot away and give birth to his own creation atop the idea of a being “who walks behind the rows.” Think of this as a reboot—a prequel to a literal adaptation of King’s work in a sequel I assume won’t come despite the original spawning double-digit entries for an inexplicable franchise.

Maybe Wimmer’s embracement of the short’s much darker tone will garner a new fan base while satisfying the old. Maybe a shoehorned, retooled theme of climate change and Boomers destroying the Earth for profit without a thought towards their children’s and grandchildren’s futures will be enough to replace the anti-evangelical message of the source. I just wish it didn’t have to be so generic.

Because much like writer George Goldsmith, Wimmer doesn’t see the appeal of King’s story as the terror of an unmoving and unfeeling horde acting on behalf of pure evil. Where the short moved past exposition to focus on effect and the nightmare born from hive mind indoctrination, all these filmmakers seem to see is the potential for children killing adults. And what better way is there to showcase that than manifesting the origin of a town gone wrong?

Where the first adaptation did so by imagining how Isaac took control and instated Gatlin’s rules for “ascension” at age nineteen via a prologue, Wimmer chooses to make his imagining of that moment the entirety of his film. The names and motivations have been changed, but the result is the same: the corn is dying and the children are the only ones who care. So, they band together to murder all adults and take control.

The film is at its best when it lets itself become a monster movie with glimpses of “He Who Walks” filtered through a line of dialogue that posits the corn’s state of disrepair has fostered the growth of a fungus causing hallucinations. Is there really a creature in the stalks? Or has Eden (a very game Kate Moyer) let her sadistic mind get the best of her?

Bo (Elena Kampouris) can’t really let the difference get in the way of the reality that she’s watching the town’s children become feral beasts ready and willing to violently dismember anyone who gets in Eden’s way regardless. All she can do is hope to stop the chaos before it’s too late—to appeal to consciences and protect the adults from certain death (regardless of their guilt insofar as being horribly sinful creatures in their own right).

It’s a bloody affair with effective special effects where the corn fields “coming to life” is concerned. Wimmer bites off more than he can chew upon finally giving an answer to the question of whether “He Who Walks” exists, but the more critical issue is Hollywood’s undying need to supply a hero. King rejected that inclination. His story excelled because it shined a light on humanity’s darkness and the fact that it was consuming more and more as time passed.

What’s so wrong about letting that truth breathe? Why must we have a Bo who’s ready to fight no matter what as though audiences aren’t capable of processing hopelessness? All it does is ensure evil has a face: Eden. It ignores the prevalent abstract nature of greed and rage, saying that any horrors in this world can be defeated. It once again seeks to sanitize source material that refreshingly embraced the futility of our struggle to survive our own attempts at self-extermination.

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(L-R) Kate Moyer as “Eden Edwards” and Elena Kampouris as “Boleyn Williams” in the horror film, CHILDREN OF THE CORN, a RLJE Films release. Photo courtesy of RLJE Films.