Children of the Corn

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Children of the Corn is a 1984 horror film based upon the 1978 short story of the same name by Stephen King. Set in the fictional rural town of Gatlin, Nebraska, the film tells the story of a demonic entity referred to as "He Who Walks Behind The Rows" which entices the children of the town to ritualistically murder all the adults to ensure a successful corn harvest.

The series consists of:

  • Children of the Corn (1984)
  • Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1993)
  • Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)
  • Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996)
  • Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)
  • Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999)
  • Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001)
  • The Children of the Corn remake by Syfy (2009)
  • Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011)
Tropes used in Children of the Corn include:
  • Adults Are Useless: And dead.
  • All There in the Manual: As revealed in The Stand, He Who Walks behind the rows is implied to be Randall Flagg, a Stephen King villain from The Stand and the Dark Tower series. This is never mentioned in the short story or any of the adaptations.
  • Artistic Licence Biology: In the remake, Joseph Ahaz's blood coagulates within minutes, and he keeps crackling like his bones are breaking every time he's touched.
  • Bigger Bad: He Who Walks Behind the Rows.
  • Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Remake. A sex ceremony in which two of the adolescent cult members conceive a child is spliced with shots of Burt stumbling through a field filled with dead bodies. His yowl of anguish merges with the woman's orgasm screams.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: It's even the tagline of the movie.
  • Creepy Child
  • Direct to DVD: Fourth film and onwards.
  • Downer Ending: The original short story.
  • The Dragon: Malachai acts as Isaac's Dragon, ready to kill and destroy at his behest.
    • Malachai also counts as The Starscream; since later in the movie he leads a revolution against Isaac.
  • Dying as Yourself: Micah at the end of CotC2.
  • Early Installment Weirdness: Would you believe the original story first appeared in Penthouse magazine?
  • Evil Redhead: Malachai in the first film.
  • Eye Scream: In the 2009 version, with corn husks.
  • Fan Disservice: Revelation has a stripper as a character. At one point she gets naked and starts bathing and - Oh my God! The evil corn is stabbing her to death!
  • Fan Service: The sex scene in the remake. It has nothing to do with anything else going on and takes place between two characters who aren't even named and are barely seen at any other time in the movie.
  • Ghost Town
  • Gorn: Urban Harvest has several weird, gross deaths, while the remake has a number of excessively brutal ones.
  • Human Sacrifice
  • Immodest Orgasm: The woman in the fertility ritual almost shatters the church windows with her moaning as she's getting nailed on the altar.
  • Infant Immortality: Quite widely averted in the 2009 remake. In fact, it's also toyed with when Burt, who's a Vietnam Veteran in the remake, kills a few of them during a Vietnam Flashback, believing them to be Vietcong hiding in the corn.
    • Even the original starts with a young boy attempting to escape the town, only to be killed and shoved out onto the road.
  • It Got Worse: Year after year, He Who Walks Behind The Rows demands adults over a certain age to be sacrificed, and any time anyone in the community sins against him that age gets reduced. By the time the story begins there's only teenagers left. . .
  • Lost in the Maize: The Quintessential Example.
  • Not as You Know Them: Malachai is far more loyal to Isaac in the remake than in the original. Burt is a Vietnam Vet in the remake and has frequent flashbacks. Vicky is black and a former anti-war activist. Isaac is also nine years old in the remake and is implied to be a new leader after the old one reached the "age of favor." Isaac is also harsher and more ruthless in the remake. For example, in the original he tolerates Job and Sarah's apostasy. Finally Job and Sarah are merged into one character, who is killed by Burt while in a flashback. Joseph is implied to be the son of the original leader, he has his tie in his suitcase. In the original no such relation is suggested.
  • Numbered Sequels
  • Pet The Dog: When Malachai catches Job and Sarah playing Monopoly and listening to music as well as Sarah's drawings he drags them to Isaac for an expected punishment. However instead, Isaac, who realizes that Sarah's drawings predict the future, not only commends Sarah for her gift; but also tells Malachai to send them back to the house unharmed. This becomes one of the things, that causes Malachai to doubt Isaac as a leader.

Isaac: You have the Gift of Sight. This is a blessing, my child.

  • Sinister Scythe
  • Teenage Wasteland: Self-inflicted.
  • Teens Are Monsters: The original group of "children" in the short story are actually in their teens when they kill the adults.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Burt in the original short story. He dies.
  • Town with a Dark Secret
  • Ultimate Evil: He Who Walks Behind The Rows. In the original short story, the implication is that his true identity is Randall Flagg, Stephen King's meta-villain.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: It's unknown what happened to Burt, Vicky, Job and Sarah after they escaped Gaitlin in the original movie, albeit the second movie does briefly mentioned that a couple (Burt and Vicky) went to Hemingford (a town near Gatlin) and told about Gaitlin and the cult.
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