Anne Marie McEvoy, Courtney Gains, John Franklin

The murder rate is as high as an elephant's eye in this flaccid adaptation of Stephen King's short story. While driving through Nebraska en route to a new job, medico Burt (Peter Horton) and his wife ...( read more  read more... )Vicky (a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton) nearly run over a mutilated boy who staggers from the cornfields. Seeking help, they enter the town of Gatlin, whose under-20 residents have butchered their parents per the decree of junior-grade holy roller Isaac (John Franklin), who preaches the word of a being called "He Who Walks Behind the Rows." King's original story (from his 1978 collection Night Shift) was a lean and brutal mélange of Southern-gothic atmosphere and E.C. Comics-style gore, which scripter Greg Goldsmith effectively neutralizes by adding a youthful narrator (a grating Robbie Kiger) and putting an upbeat spin on the story's morbid conclusion. Fritz Kiersch's direction is TV-movie flat, with the sole inspired moment (hideous religious iconography glimpsed during a bloody "service") delivered as a throwaway. Aside from Horton and Courtney Gains (as Isaac's hatchet man Malachai), the performances are dreadful, and the depiction of the Lovecraftian monster-god as a sort of giant gopher inspires more laughter than terror. Amazingly, the film spawned six sequels; Franklin (Cousin Itt in the Addams Family films) later appeared in and wrote 1999's Children of the Corn 666. --Paul Gaita

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52% liked it

70,455 ratings

R, 93 min.

Directed by: Fritz Kiersch

Release Date: March 9, 1984

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DVD Release Date: April 10, 2001

Stats: 2,597 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (2,597)


  • May 9, 2009
    This film stretches itself as far as it can go. It's simply two people walking around and driving around for a very long time. When the kids finally come out to play, they're such awful actors it's hard to take them seriously. By the end the dated effects come into play and it's ...( read more)a bizarre mixture of Tron and some animated fire. Kid's are generally pretty scary, but not when they are trying this hard.
  • November 8, 2008
    I preferred the first half of this film to the second, I feel it started off quite well as a classic Horror and very typically Stephen King, it just went on a little too long.

    Reminded me of the (much later) French film ?Them?.
  • September 20, 2008
    Job and Sarah were cute, and Malachi was the ugliest kid I've ever seen. Not sure if Issac was a midget or an ugly kid or a kid in makeup, but it was odd looking as well. Not sure this movie made ANY sense. It could have been just fine as a stand alone 'child zealot cult' that...( read more) killed adults, but for some stupid reason at the end it shifts gears for the worse. All of the sudden some really bad yellow effects crap is everywhere and you half expect to see kevin Bacon running from the mysterious tremors that come racing through the corn. Steven King likes to ruin more movies that way with terrible effects (i.e. the langoliers).
  • July 21, 2008
    I think this is one better left to memory. The beginning is fantastic, but the meltdown at the end (crucifixes that shoot sparkles and fly away?) is a tad disappointing now.
  • June 10, 2008
    One of the better Stephen King films.
  • November 20, 2009
    It had a good concept and I bet the book was more cohesient. The movie was just a bit too random for me. And I would like to see the story evolve in the movie so I don't need to it on the back of the DVD case. That just pisses me of. You should never need to read about the movie ...( read more)on the matherf***in' case. bom bom bom I like Jeff Hardy.
  • November 10, 2009
    i love this series of stephen king movies
  • October 19, 2009
    based on the story by stephen king. and so people say i do look like character issac(play by john franklin)cause of my face *blushes* so anyway i do enjoying anything movie with stephen king and he the best author i guess. this movie is very creeping something in gatlin, nebraska...( read more). character malachai lookin weird with the knife with him. but great killing in the beginning of the film. one of good trailer i saw it through.
  • October 16, 2009
    Still good but just not as good as I remembered
  • October 13, 2009
    IT IS MY FAVORITE MOVIE EVER! And I have herd that John Franklin (Isaac)
    has a growing hormone. BTW John Franklin (Isaac) is sexy!

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Comments


  • HorrorMovieCinema
    June 11, 2008
    kwl movie and i think issac is
    funny cuz hes short
    and i like the way he talks:)
  • BrittyWitty
    June 5, 2007
    lol yeah deffinatly a beastly midget lol!!
    this movie rox but all stephen king movies rock
  • tmac14621
    February 2, 2007
    Children of the Corn! It was a funny yet sick and twisted movie! I loved it and Issac is a beastly midget!!!!

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Children of the Corn Trivia


  • What was the first movie Charlize Theron was in (although she was uncredited).  Answer »
  • In what movie do children kill off their parents, worship he who walks behind the rows and listen o a child preacher.  Answer »
  • BattleToad's Synonym Game - Name the movie whose title means the same as the clues. -Young People -Hailing From -Cobbed Vegetable  Answer »
  • Which of the following is not based on a novella in the Stephen King book, Different Seasons?  Answer »

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