“OUTLANDER!”
DIR: Fritz Kiersch
WRITTEN BY: George Goldsmith (based on a short story by Stephen King)
STARRING: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R. G. Armstrong, John Franklin, Courtney Gains
PRODUCED BY: Donald P. Borchers, Terence Kirby
MUSIC BY: Jonathan Elias
EDITED BY: Harry Keramidas
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joao Fernandes (Raoul Lomas)
Stephen King’s work has experienced a cultural renaissance as of late. Undoubtedly the result of Andrés Muschietti’s 2017 adaptation of IT, Hollywood has turned to the work of the Maine man (main man? Get it? Cos like…he’s the big guy in all of this…and…like…yeah) as one of its driving forces in horror cinema. At this moment in time, there are two Shining-adjacent movies (the long-gestating Overlook Hotel movie, and an adaptation of Doctor Sleep), and a Pet Sematary adaptation just waiting to be unleashed. However, this creative choice is nothing new. Obviously. I mean, like, Stephen King movies have been a dime-a-dozen since the 70s. I’d be more surprised if there weren’t any Stephen King adaptations in development right now.
1984’s CHILDREN OF THE CORN is smack-dab in the middle of what we’ll now refer to as King’s “IMDb Loves This Shit” period, or as other people call it, the 1980s. Simply put, they made a lot of good movies based on King’s work around this time. The decade starts off with The Shining, continues on with The Dead Zone, kinda stumbles with Maximum Overdrive, and then ascends with Stand By Me, before finishing out with Pet Sematary. Somewhere in there you’ve got Cujo, The Running Man, Creepshow, the odd Christine and Firestarter adaptation too. The point being, CHILDREN OF THE CORN is in good company, yeah, but does it live up to it?
Yes and no. It’s a weird movie. The basic premise (a couple getting into trouble in a town ruled by a 9-year-old where everyone is sacrificed to some sort of god if/once they’re 19 years old or over) invites a lot of potential scares, a lot of interesting commentary…and the final product goes and decides that it’s like, an advertisement for Christianity? Like there’s a weird moment towards the end when Burt (Peter Horton, giving one of the weirdest performances of all time – more on that later) confronts all the kids after Isaac (aforementioned 9 year old prophet, played by John Franklin), crucified on a cross made of corn or something and absorbed by one of those glitter effects you put on gifs, and preaches to them the importance of having love and compassion in your religion. Later, a passage from the Bible shows them the solution to destroying He Who Walks Behind the Rows (although, folks, they clearly didn’t because this thing got like 10 sequels). There’s also this implied notion that Isaac and co. are misinterpreting parts of the Old Testament, which Burt even comments on.
There are also some interesting sequences, and some, well…
The infamous opening scene, where all the adults are killed in a diner, is…intriguing? I mean, it’s oddly put together. There are so many quick cuts, bizarre zooms, there’s no real sense of what’s going on, which is neat because it reflects how senseless the violence is or whatever. It might be the best bit of directing and editing in the entire movie, matched only by the GOAT sequence towards the end where Burt runs through what appears to be the same alleyway three or four times, for real, it’s incredible. In all seriousness, the effect used to convey He Who Etcs burrowing through the ground? Pretty cool (it’s an upside down wheelbarrow being pulled underneath a tarp covered in dirt).
This movie though, I mean…
For the most part, the performances are weird. Linda Hamilton (pre-Terminator) is probably out-classing everyone here, even if her character loses any sort of momentum about two-thirds into the film. John Franklin as Isaac is alright, but for someone who’s like, the main antagonist, he actually barely does much beyond give a sermon or two and come back from the dead looking like a cartoon shot-gun has exploded in his face. I do love Courtney Gains as Malachai, mostly because he’s got the biggest surfer-dude accent going and it makes no sense whatsoever in relation to what the other kids are like. Maybe he’d just moved into town when Isaac got them all going.
Peter Horton as Burt, though, is just something else. Horton’s portrayal of a guy who’s just having a really shitty time of it doesn’t quite land, often coming across as both disinterested and totally captivated, somehow. He isn’t helped by Goldsmith’s script, which quickly establishes that this guy is just too cool to be fazed by this kind of thing, whether it’s being stabbed in a church by a child or, in what might be my favourite example ever of a character fucking up their own plan to beat the bad guy, failing to hit a wide, almost-infinite row of corn, doused in gasoline, with a molotov cocktail. The aforementioned scene where he preaches to them the glory of having a religion where you don’t kill people over the age of 19 is weird too, because it’s tacked onto a scene where he rescues Linda Hamilton from them. He literally just tells her to fuck off beforehand.
I tried finding a deeper meaning to this movie, something more tangible, something universal. For a while, I thought it might be a movie about how fragile and volatile relationships can be, considering there’s a random cut to Burt and Vicky arguing in the car mere seconds after being all loved up in a hotel room (this scene culminates in Burt smashing the fuck out of a child with his car by mistake, made jarring by the fact that the child’s positioning on the road coupled with Burt looking ahead, out of the windshield, repeatedly during this argument means there was no way he didn’t see the kid before hitting him), but that wasn’t it. Then I thought, maybe it’s about how easily kids can be taken in by some form of ideology and how really, we should be looking at what they do, and making sure they don’t reject authority, but then again, their whole plot is driven by the presence of authority (He Who etcs).
So I really do think that CHILDREN OF THE CORN is just a secret Christian horror movie.
ONE GOOD THING
Welcome to ONE GOOD THING, the segment where I try to find at least one good thing about the movie I’ve just seen.
I think that, at times, the direction is really effective. The aforementioned senselessness in the diner scene, intentional or not, is riveting, and there are other scenes (when Burt hits that kid, he goes into the cornfield to examine this suitcase that the kid was trying to escape with, and at one point Malachai’s just standing there, in the background, watching, chilling, thinking about stuff) that really amplify the horror.
The locations are alright too, I guess.
To be honest, King’s work has seen better days. I’m sure someone out there’s planning to reboot this (although I honestly reckon the upcoming Pet Sematary remake will make or break the current King streak) and we’ll get like, Jacob Tremblay threatening to crucify, idk, Matt Smith or something, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. Kid-focused horror isn’t really a prevalent subgenre anymore, and besides the resurgence of Halloween, slashers aren’t really where horror is going now.
I’m looking forward to eventually watching those sequels, though. The fact that the third one is inexplicably set in Chicago is enough to keep me going.
NEXT TIME
More horror, times four (technically five), Grand Moff Tarkin, and a spooky setting.
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