Into just about every horror franchise comes a time when a remake will eventually be made (with so far the only exceptions we've covered being Hellraiser, Paranormal Activity and the Alien/Predator franchises, and the remake vultures have been circling Hellraiser for some time now). The Children of the Corn series is no different, and so today we come to the 2009 remake, appropriately named... Children of the Corn.
In1963, the children of Gatlin, Nebraska meet in a CGI tent in a cornfield to listen to a child preacher (dressed in a cowboy outfit, of all things) telling them about the evil that grown-ups do and how He Who Walks Behind The Rows isn't going to put up with it any more. Twelve years later - 1975 - unhappily married couple Burt and Vicky are driving to California via Nebraska when they abruptly hit a boy in the middle of the road. They quickly discover, however, that someone had cut the boy's throat before their car ran him down, so they put the body in the trunk and drive to the nearest town to report it. That town, of course, turns out to be Gatlin, apparently long-deserted now and full of corn stalks and pagan symbols made out of corn, and it's not long before the children of Gatlin turn up wanting to sacrifice the "Outlanders" to He Who Walks Behind The Rows. Burt is a Vietnam veteran, but will that be enough for them to be able to escape?
This version of Children of the Corn is much closer to the original short story by Stephen King than the 1984 movie was. On the one hand, this means that there are no twee tow-headed moppets dragging the film down (well, there's one, but he's still on the side of He Who Walks Behind The Rows so it's not so bad). On the other hand... Burt and Vicky spit so much vitriol at each other from almost the first moment they're on screen that by the 15-minute mark I hated them both and couldn't wait to see them both dead. Vicky is the worse of the couple as well, spending about 90% of her screentime shouting, screaming, bitching at and/or belittling her husband, even when it's probably the very last thing she should be doing. I know that in the original short story that Burt and Vicky are having marital problems and that this movie is sticking closely to that, but Vicky is just so ridiculously nasty to Burt. She picks fights with him over just about every little thing, including bringing up his Vietnam tour out of nowhere so she can accuse him of killing children and "raping grandmothers". When Burt eventually snaps and smacks her in the face, it's not exactly understandable but it's certainly not unexpected.
So Burt just about has the edge as the slightly less unlikeable protagonist, but even then the film feels for some reason that they can't just have him killing children even if they are trying to kill him as per the bidding of a Babylonian pagan corn and fertility god, and so they contrive to give him a case of Chekov's 'Nam Flashback. When he eventually snaps in the third act, he ends up running around in the corn, snapping pre-teen necks and shouting about the "black pyjama bastards" and it's not actually necessary. After eight movies of evil kids, we don't need to give our protagonist a Get Out of Jail Free card to excuse him killing them when they're trying to kill him.
As for the kids themselves... well, they're no John Franklin and Courtney Gains. The first preacher of He Who Walks Behind The Rows' word is, as I mentioned, wearing a child's cowboy outfit as he does, and I found it nearly impossible to take him seriously dressed like that. The second preacher child, Issac, does at least have the outfit (and a hat that's way too big for his head)... but he looks and sounds nowhere near sinister enough to pull off the "evil child preacher" role. Meanwhile, Malachai looks like he's just come from rehearsals with his teen boy band and got splashed with some blood along the way. Even when they all shout, "Outlander!" it doesn't feel the same.
(One brief related aside: Toy Story has inadvertently ruined this film and the original for me, because now whenever I hear the children reverently recite "The Blue Man", the only thing I can think of is those alien toys from the claw machine. And now you do too. You're welcome.)
There's one scene that stands out in this Children of the Corn remake though, and it's for all the wrong reasons. In the church, Issac announces to a congregation of mostly pre-teen boys that it is the "time of fertilization". A teenage boy and girl stand up and go to the altar, disrobe and proceed to have some remarkably graphic sex for a movie like this... while all the other kids cheer, dance and wave corn cobs at them. Yes, it's exactly as odd and disturbing as it sounds, not to mention uncomfortable to watch.
So, was this remake necessary? Well, it sticks far closer to the original story and is considerably darker and grimmer than the 1984 version. Its protagonists are far less likeable though, and the cult of murderous children - particularly Issac and Malachai - are not nearly as sinister and bloodthirsty-seeming. But comparing it to some of the other entries in this series, it's a considerable improvement.
2.5 out of 5.