What does it say for a film franchise when I find myself excited for the 6th (and not 666th; archivists of the future hopefully don't get too confused with that) entry of the series because it promises the return of one of the few good characters (and actors) from the very first movie? That's the position I find myself in today, with the return of John Franklin in Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return.
Teenager Hannah Martin has travelled from California to the town of Gatlin, Nebraska in search of her birth mother. 19 years on from the events that first put Gatlin, on the map, so to speak, the town is mostly a ghost town, inhabited by a few adults, including the town's doctor and Cora, the town's sheriff, and a group of teens and children who seemingly run wild throughout the town. In Gatlin's barely-functioning hospital there is also Jake who seems to be able to only speak in Bible verses, and Issac, the child preacher and leader of the cult of children that sacrificed all the adults in Gatlin all those years ago. Issac miraculously wakes from his coma once Hannah is in town, and is up and about quickly, preparing things for a prophecy that has been 19 years in the making, where the first-born daughter and son of the children of Gatlin will come together and become parents to a new "master race" of children blessed by He Who Walks Behind The Rows. Can Hannah find her birth mother and escape what Issac has planned for her, or is destiny too strong to fight against?
So yes, obviously the big draw behind this instalment of the oh-so-drawn-out Children of the Corn series is the return of Isaac Chroner, played by the original actor from the 1984 film John Franklin. Now don't get me wrong, John Franklin reprising his role as Isaac is probably one of the best things about this film, but there are two caveats to that statement: one is that it's not that difficult and two is that, while in 1984 Franklin was an adult playing a very creepy-looking child, in 1999 he's an adult playing an only moderately-creepy-looking adult. A lot of Isaac's gravitas and punch are lost now that he's got clear crows' feet and the like, even when the film dresses him in the same dark clothes and hat and has him enthusiastically preaching about He Who Walks Behind The Rows' latest plan. Elsewhere, Nancy Allen plays Rachel Colby, a woman so clearly telegraphed to be Hannah's birth mother that the only way it could be less of a spoiler would be if she walked around with a giant neon sign flashing "Hannah's Birth Mother", and Stacy Keach turns up as the town's chain-smoking, hard-drinking doctor.
The plot surrounding the "prophecy" that Hannah will make the beast with two backs with the first-born son of the Children and bring a new pure race into being is also telegraphed as hell. Early on in the film we meet Gabriel, and conditioned as we are about mysterious handsome strangers who turn up in these sort of films, we're instantly suspicious of his motives. Then we hear about the prophecy, and that Isaac has a son with Cora, and we're obviously meant to think that it's Gabriel. It's of very little surprise when it turns out not to be, but Gabriel's still got such a prominent role in the film that we can't help but guess that there's something more going on with him. Personally I was betting on a switched-at-birth scenario involving Stacy Keach, but in the end, it wasn't even that, just some good old fashioned attempted nepotism.
Horror-wise, Isaac's Return isn't so much a "slow burn" as it is doused with cold water. For the first 40 minutes, all we get is Hannah seeing or hallucinating dead crows a few times, and I don't think that's even explained in the rest of the film. Just "It's the prophecy, move along." By the film's climax, several people have been sliced, diced, stabbed and/or impaled by scythes (and a broken metal pole), but that's about all there is that could really make this film a "horror" movie. Even the threat of Hannah being impregnated by He Who Walks Behind The Rows doesn't really feel like much of a threat when you consider that we have such things as the morning-after pill now (and even the staunchest Catholic would probably consider "impregnated by evil corn god" an exceptional circumstance).
Overall, Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return gets some points for bringing back pretty much the most iconic villain of the whole series (He Who Walks Behind The Rows doesn't count because they change his appearance each movie) and having John Franklin return to play him... but then it loses most of those points by not utilising him nearly enough and proceeding with an obvious and tension-free plot that a small child could probably see through. He Wh Walks Behind The Rows is growing less threatening with every chapter now.
1.5 out of 5 stars.