Children of the Corn 2009 on Syfy
I spent the whole week eagerly awaiting the chance to watch Syfy’s new “Children of the Corn” remake. After all, the advertising proclaimed that the movie would finally be produced “the way it was meant to be written”. Hmmm…I wasn’t aware that the first one didn’t live up to certain expectations…presumably those of Stephen King’s,or the fans, or anyone else for that matter. After all, it is considered a classic. A “cheesy” classic at that, but nevertheless, a classic horror movie based on a classic King short story. Isaac and Malachai, and the rest of the children who worshipped “He who walks behind the rows” will forever be burned into that “creepy” portion of our brains brings out the goose bumps. I wasn’t sure how that creepiness could be improved upon, if at all for that matter, but I would soon find out.
First off, I have to be completely honest. Prior to the airing of “Children of the Corn (CotC) 2009”, Syfy aired a day-long marathon that consisted of the CotC sequels 4 through 7. I thought this was a cool idea at first, but looking back now, I’m not so sure. I had seen most of each of those movies before, or at least parts of them, and I thought it would be an awesome build-up to the new CotC remake. Well, I can’t quite put my finger on whether it was a result of watching 8 or so hours of mediocre b-horror movies consecutively, or that the 2009 CotC remake really sucked, but I fell fast asleep approximately 30 minutes into the feature movie I had waited all day to watch.
Kandyse McClure as “Vicky” and David Anders as “Burt”
I was disappointed that I missed out on the remake, but the first 30 minutes were extremely grueling to suffer through. As in the original, we are presented with a lengthy interaction between Burt and Vicky as they are driving cross-country. They proceed to accidentally hit the already “near death” kid that stumbles out of the cornfield, and consequently freak out over what to do next. This leads them to discover the freaky little town of Gatlin, NE.
“Vicky” being bitchy
Well, I have a few comments regarding this period of the movie. About the only good thing was the impressive cinematography. A 1970’s atmosphere was successfully recreated, from the giant boat-sized Thunderbird to the hazy, faded color of the film. However, this was all overshadowed by the fact that the character of Vicky, played by Kandyse McClure, is presented in this version as the biggest hatred-inspiring bitch on the face of the planet. I swear, the whole initial 30 minutes of the movie revolve around the constant harpy whiny insults that she hurls at poor Burt, played by David Anders, who’s just chilling, wondering why she’s having a constant bitch-fest. Oh my God, I have never wanted to see a main character killed off so fast as I wanted to see Vicky bite it. And from what I gathered (and sadly missed), her fulfilling demise did happen not too long after I passed out. I know in the original short story, the characters of Burt and Vicky were much more dysfunctional than they were presented in the original movie, but this rendering was just plain ridiculous, almost so over the top it was comical. If I were Burt, I would have left her in the middle of the road after getting out of the car and checking out the kid’s body.
Preston Bailey as the cute “Isaac”
During my brief viewing of the movie, I also have to say that I was disappointed in the “normalcy” of the “corn kids” that were expected to be a major creep factor. In the original, the kids were ‘creepy’ in the glaring, dirty, zombie kid kind of way. In this version, they just looked like a bunch of Amish kids hanging out doing farmwork. The only thing scary about Isaac was the ridiculously huge hat they made him wear which made him look like a giant thumbtack. The kids just looked bored and definitely not mesmerized by the power of “he that walks behind the rows”. Preston Bailey, who played Isaac, was just plain cute, not freakishly sinister like the Isaac, played by the naturally creepy John Franklin, in the original movie.
John Franklin as the original creepy “Isaac”
Since I missed pretty much the whole movie, I checked out other websites and people’s reviews of “Children of the Corn 2009” and realized that the rest of the movie pretty much left the same impression with other people as the first 30 minutes did with me. It is puzzling to me as to why there has always been so much interest in creating multiple “Children of the Corn” movies out of what was originally a 27 page short story. It seems obvious, that unless you can hire an excellent author to expand on those original 27 pages, you end up with an hour and a half movie full of filler and stretched storylines which really tests the limits of your attention span.
A “scary” version of the movie or just more “corn”?
To top this all off, I learned through various sites that Dimension Films is currently working on creating yet another remake of the original, this time with more emphasis on the religious overtones present in the story. I don’t know, but I’m not holding my breath on that one. “Children of the Corn” has been beaten to death, literally it seems, and filmmakers need to move on and find writers that can come up with some new, original horror stories with which to try to scare us, rather than continuing to create b-movie sequels that come off as more whimsical than scary. The original “Children of the Corn” was a classic. Let’s leave it that way.
