Children of the Corn (1984)

And a child shall lead them…

There are plenty of places in horror where you know immediately that you shouldn’t stop the car.

Gatlin, Nebraska might be number one.

Children of the Corn takes something that should feel peaceful, a tiny Midwestern town surrounded by endless farmland, and makes the whole damn place feel wrong. The streets are empty. The adults are gone. The corn seems to stretch forever.

And then you meet the kids.

Fritz Kiersch’s 1984 adaptation of Stephen King’s short story follows Burt and Vicky, played by Peter Horton and a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton, as a road trip puts them on a collision course with Gatlin. They quickly discover that the town hasn’t simply fallen on hard times. The children have taken over, and they answer to a pint-sized preacher named Isaac.

John Franklin’s Isaac is the secret weapon here. He doesn’t need a mask, an axe or a particularly imposing frame. He just stands there in that black hat, preaching to a congregation of children with the absolute confidence of a man who knows the corn is listening.

And when Isaac needs somebody to handle the dirty work, there’s Malachai.

Courtney Gains gives him exactly the right combination of lanky, angry and completely unhinged. Isaac may run Gatlin from the pulpit, but Malachai is the kid you really don’t want coming down the road toward you.

Then there’s He Who Walks Behind the Rows.

The movie is at its best when it doesn’t explain too much. Something is out there. The children believe in it. The adults are gone because of it. And every time the corn starts moving when there’s no good reason for the corn to be moving, suddenly driving through Nebraska at night seems like a terrible idea.

Why Children of the Corn Is Worth Renting

It’s not just Isaac and Malachai. It’s the whole damn town. Children stand silently in doorways, gather in the streets and disappear into the corn with the kind of obedience that tells you this has been going on for a while. Nobody seems frightened by what’s happened to Gatlin; they believe in it. That’s what makes the group so unsettling. Burt and Vicky haven’t stumbled across a few creepy kids. They’ve driven into a town where the kids have already won.

Gatlin Feels Like the End of the Road

The empty streets might be creepier than the corn. Cars have been abandoned. Storefronts are deserted. Nobody answers the door. It feels like Burt and Vicky drove into a town five minutes after the rest of the world ended and somehow nobody bothered to tell them.

Sometimes the Corn Just Needs to Move

Children of the Corn works best when He Who Walks Behind the Rows remains exactly that—something behind the rows. A sound, a movement, a belief powerful enough to make an entire town of children obey. The less clearly we can see what’s out there, the easier it is to imagine something much worse.

Children of the Corn Official Trailer