BACKGROUND
The 1984 film Children of the Corn will always hold a special place in my heart because, when I was getting into horror as a kid, it was the one movie my mom said I had to wait a while before watching. I had to work my way up to this one. That’s because it’s about killer kids, and she didn’t think a kid who was fresh to the horror genre should be exposed to that concept too early. So I waited. I rented other movies from the horror section of the video stores while looking at the cover of the Children of the Corn VHS box and thinking to myself that I was going to watch that movie someday. Eventually, I did get to watch it... and I loved it. In fact, I have a soft spot for the entire Children of the Corn franchise. But I have never really thought of the first film as a slasher movie. Sure, it has killers who slash their victims, but maybe I haven’t considered it to be a slasher because most of the slashing is contained in the opening sequence. Still, I have seen the film referred to as a slasher online, so I figured, why not cover it as part of the Dissecting Slashers series?
Children of the Corn was marketed as being “an adult nightmare.” So maybe it’s fitting that the source material, a short story written by Stephen King, was first published in the pages of the adult magazine Penthouse. It was then included in King’s 1978 short story collection Night Shift, and it wasn’t long before studios started inquiring about the film rights to the stories in that book. Children of the Corn sold to an unexpected company: Hal Roach Studios. Best known for their comedic output, they had been called “The Laugh Factory to the World.” They had even been behind the Our Gang franchise, also known as The Little Rascals. Now, apparently, they were interested in making a movie that would ask the question, “What if the Little Rascals were homicidal?”
King wrote the first draft of the screenplay himself, but studio executives weren’t entirely satisfied with what he turned in. His short story centered on a very unhappy couple that was on the verge of divorce, so he dedicated the first thirty-five pages of the script to this couple bickering and having intense arguments with each other. Since that script didn’t work for them, the studio turned to a writer named George Goldsmith, whose rewrite took the screenplay further from the short story, changing the relationship between the lead characters and giving them a pair of allies to interact with. King wasn’t pleased with Goldsmith’s revisions, leading to an uncomfortable phone call between the two. King claimed that Goldsmith didn’t understand horror, and Goldsmith replied that King didn’t understand cinema. His script hadn’t been cinematic enough, and the studio must have thought Goldsmith’s script was, because that’s the one they went with.
Several other companies stepped in to help Hal Roach Studios get the film into production, including distributor New World Pictures. New World’s Donald P. Borchers became a producer on the film, and he’s the one who thought of offering the directing job to Fritz Kiersch, even though Kiersch had never directed a feature film before. His success had come from making commercials, and Borchers was very impressed by his work. While Kiersch would have been happy to stick with commercials, he couldn’t turn down the chance to direct a Stephen King movie. This was a huge opportunity.
From the time he was hired, Kiersch had roughly two months to prepare before filming was expected to begin. He went on a location scout to multiple states across the U.S. and found the cornfields and small towns he was looking for in Sioux City, Iowa and the surrounding areas. These are the places that would stand in for the small town King had envisioned, Gatlin, Nebraska, on the screen.
SETTING
The King-filtered-through-Goldsmith story centers a couple named Burt and Vicky, who are passing through Nebraska on a road trip to the West Coast, where Burt will be taking a job in the medical field. When they hit a child that comes stumbling out of a cornfield and into the road, they seek help in the nearest town. A little place called Gatlin. There they find that all of the adults have been killed off, sacrificed by the children to a monstrous god that lives in the corn. A god they call He Who Walks Behind the Rows. This god demands the blood of anyone older than their teens. In return, the corn grows tall and healthy. Burt and Vicky, being adults themselves, are targeted by the little maniacs that have been in control of Gatlin for about three years at this point.
The Iowa locations Kiersch chose for the film were great picks, as Gatlin is the perfect representation of small town America. Residential areas and little buildings that make up the downtown area, with country homes, farms, and vast cornfields standing outside city limits. You could get lost in these fields on a regular day, but in Gatlin there’s also a supernatural force in play that can make the fields seem like they’re an endless maze.
Kiersch and the producers didn’t take into consideration that cornfields can change a lot in a period of two months, the amount of time that passed between the location scout and the start of production. When they returned to Iowa to start filming, they were shocked. Some of the corn wasn’t there anymore. It had been harvested. Other fields of corn had changed color; they lost their vibrant green. The crew had to scramble to find corn that was suitable to appear in the movie. One farmer was convinced not to harvest his crop so they could use it as the main cornfield in the film. Cornstalks made of polyurethane were used for some moments, and sometimes crew members had to paint the green back onto real cornstalks. The fakery isn’t apparent in the finished film, it all just looks like authentic heartland.
KILLERS
There are a whole lot of killers in this movie; an entire cult of homicidal children. Almost every child in the town of Gatlin joined forces to wipe out the adults. The cult is led by fanatical preacher Isaac Chroner (John Franklin) and his right hand man Malachai Boardman (Courtney Gains). Isaac is a prophet of He Who Walks Behind the Rows; he gives the orders and his followers do the dirty work. Malachai, the creepiest and most dangerous of the bunch, enforces Isaac's rule with violence and intimidation, making sure the cult’s members remain brainwashed and thoroughly dedicated to their corn god.
John Franklin and Courtney Gains both made their film acting debuts here. Even though he was in his mid-twenties, Franklin could pass for younger because of a growth hormone deficiency. He had just finished working on a commercial where he had been playing a Vulcan, and it was decided that he would keep his Vulcan haircut for Children of the Corn. They figured it would add an extra bit of strangeness to the character – and they were right. His small stature, his odd haircut, and his occasionally grating voice all work together to make Isaac a memorable character. For his part, Gains proved to be so effective at playing an evil little bastard, even his parents were disturbed by his performance. He started bringing the intensity as soon as he stepped into the audition room, where he pulled a prop knife on a casting assistant.
Many of the He Who Walks Behind the Rows kids are played by Iowa locals, but John Philbin, who would land a role in The Return of the Living Dead the following year, was cast as a cult member named Amos, who is ready to be sacrificed now that he’s turning 19. Julie Maddalena was cast as pregnant teen Rachel, who doesn’t let her pregnancy hold her back from attacking people.
FINAL GIRL
Burt and Vicky were an unhappy married couple in the short stroy, but in the film’s shooting script, Burt and Vicky aren’t married. The tension in their relationship comes from the fact that Vicky is anxiously waiting for Burt to propose to her. The role of Burt went to Peter Horton, who was a few years away from landing a major role on the TV series Thirtysomething. For Vicky, Kiersch cast Linda Hamilton, who would go right from working on this movie to starring in The Terminator, which started filming the same month Children of the Corn reached theatres. Even though Hamilton would go on to play one of the great heroines in movie history, her character in this movie isn’t much of a “final girl.” For the final stretch of the running time, Vicky is actually a damsel in distress. She gets captured by the cult children and strung up in a cornfield, giving Burt the opportunity to become a better character. He is clearly not putting as much thought or effort in their relationship as Vicky is, as he has commitment issues. But when Vicky is captured by the cult, he’s willing to go on a rescue mission and take on an army of killer kids to save her.
As mentioned, Goldsmith gave Burt and Vicky allies that they didn’t have in King’s version of the story. Robby Kiger and AnneMarie McEvoy were cast as the helpful kids, Job and Sarah, who don’t follow Isaac / He Who Walks Behind the Rows and live in fear of Malachai. If you’re looking for a final girl, Sarah actually fits the standard description more than Vicky does. She doesn’t become a damsel in distress, for one thing. She and her brother Job aid Burt in his effort to get Vicky back and take down the cult. And while they’re not in the short story, Sarah does seem like a King character. She has psychic ability and shares the visions she has through crayon drawings. Definitely something you would find in a King story. As maligned as it is, this movie actually improves on the source material in multiple ways. Kiersch and Goldsmith made the characters more interesting and tolerable, while doing a great expansion of the concepts and scenes in the short story. Of course, King would disagree.
Job and Sarah are the best characters in the movie, as they bring an appreciated lightness to some scenes, and they’re good sidekicks for Burt to have.
VICTIMS
Most of the victims in this film are random adults that are murdered by the children in the opening sequence. We see the massacre from the perspective of Job, who was stopping by a diner with his father when the youngsters started attacking everyone. It’s a hell of way to get the movie started. Since wiping out their parents, grandparents, and other folks over the age of 19, the “children of the corn” have continued making human sacrifices to He Who Walks Behind the Rows any time one of their members has their 19th birthday... and if any adult outsiders happen to venture through town, they’re not going to make it out alive, either. Which is trouble for Burt and Vicky.
To try to deter outsiders from entering the town at all, the children have made an alliance with the adult who runs the rundown auto shop outside of town, which doesn’t see much business. The great character actor R.G. Armstrong plays the auto shop proprietor, an old man named Diehl, who is somebody else who lives in fear of Isaac and Malachai. He’s right to be worried, because his treaty with the kids comes to an end during the events of this movie.
Job and Sarah weren’t the only kids in town who weren’t into this He Who Walks Behind the Rows crap. Jonas Marlowe plays Joseph, an unlucky kid who gets his throat slit for trying to flee from Gatlin. Then he stumbles out into the road and gets hit by Burt and Vicky’s car, the unfortunate situation that draws them into Gatlin.
DEATHS
Despite the high body count, Children of the Corn is relatively restrained compared to the (other) slasher films of the era, relying more on atmosphere and psychological horror than bloodshed. Most of the blood is spilled during that opening sequence. Some of the adults in the diner scene are poisoned, while others are slashed with knives, farming implements, and/or a meat cleaver. One man gets his hand run into an electric meat slicer. Job’s father gets his throat slit. This wasn’t all we supposed to see of the massacre, though. Kiersch planned to show attacks in other locations, and even filmed a sequence that focused on the town’s sheriff. That sequence didn’t turn out well for the sheriff. He’s the Blue Man, the corpse wearing a police uniform that we see crucified in the cornfield.
When Malachai slashes Joseph’s throat, we don’t see the cut happen. We just see a splash of his blood. Then he stumbles out into the road while holding his bleeding throat, and he gets smashed by Burt’s car.
We’re not shown the murder of Diehl at all. We just know that he’s in the final moments of his life because the kids are lurking in his auto shop and getting their weapons out. Before that, Diehl discovers that they have killed his dog. He was originally supposed to find the dog’s severed head, but that effect would have been costly, so he finds the dog’s bloody bandana instead. Which is actually better for the movie, and still effective.
The ratings board was cracking down on violence in horror movies around this time, but Kiersch never intended his film to be a bloodbath. He didn’t want to show blades slicing or penetrating flesh. He wanted to be more suggestive. And yet, the financial group Angeles Entertainment wanted to withdraw from the film at one point because they felt it was too gory. Thankfully, they were convinced to stay involved. And according to Kiersch’s audio commentary, they ended up taking New World Pictures to court because they didn’t receive profits they were owed.
CLICHÉS
You can find plenty of clichés in Children of the Corn, including the "Creepy Kid" one, where innocent-looking children become deadly threats. We’ve seen that in a lot of horror stories. There’s the "Remote Town with a Dark Secret," the "Outsiders Who Stumble into Danger" scenario, the "Religious Zealot Villain," the "Supernatural Entity Demanding Sacrifice," and the “Damsel in Distress” situation.
POSTMORTEM
Kiersch was working with a budget that was lower than it seemed. Technically, the budget was 1.3 million, but the director only had access to two-thirds of that amount. The rest of it went to studio executives and to Stephen King. Due to the budget being lower than expected, some scenes had to go unfilmed and Kiersch wasn’t able to include nearly as many special effects as he had envisioned. There were supposed to be more confrontations between Burt and the killer kids, but those were pared down. When evil is defeated in the climactic moments, Kiersch wanted to show the cornfield rotting away. They couldn’t afford that. But at least they were able to show the field burning. In King’s story, the corn god He Who Walks Behind the Rows actually shows up to attack Burt. King described this thing as a huge green creature with red eyes the size of footballs. That thing definitely couldn’t be put into the movie, so Kiersch had to find a work-around. In some shots, He Who Walks Behind the Rows is represented by a strange, colorful substance appearing in the air. This was achieved by filming ink being injected into water. That’s not very impressive, and even Kiersch refers to that effect as “The Cauliflower Monster.” The better work-around comes in shots where we see He Who Walks Behind the Rows burrowing through the ground, and this effect was simple to achieve. All they had to do was dig a ditch, put an upside down wheelbarrow in there, cover it with dirt, then pull it through the dirt with a tractor. When He Who Walks Behind the Rows is moving underground like a Graboid in a Tremors movie, it’s just a wheelbarrow under there.
This movie wasn’t on the level of the Stephen King adaptations that had come before. Several of those had been rather prestigious, and made by legends: Brian De Palma, Stanley Kubrick, George A. Romero, John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, David Cronenberg. With Cujo, Lewis Teague directed Dee Wallace through a performance that King felt was Oscar worthy. And then you have this movie. A low budget flick from a first-time director who said he saw his film as a tribute to the B-movies of past decades. It wasn’t very well received by critics. But it was successful at the box office, pulling in just over 14.5 million dollars.
And just because it was a tribute to B-movies doesn’t mean the filmmakers didn’t take the subject matter seriously. Goldsmith said that when he was writing the script, he saw it as a metaphor for situations in the Middle East. Speaking with Fangoria magazine, Borchers said he wanted to make this movie because “It provided the chance to make a statement that I really believed in. … The idea that an entire group of individuals at a certain location believe in a religion. Why? Because everyone else does. I was real interested in examining the idea of dogma, the idea of blind faith without questioning, and the consequences of all this.”
For his part, Stephen King wasn’t impressed with how the film turned out. When asked what he thought of it during a TV interview, he said, “I think it’s the work of people who are going to do better.” Speaking on the Netflix and Kill podcast, Kiersch revealed that he has still to this day never met King, but he was able to read a letter that King sent to the studio after he watched the movie, and he made it clear “he didn’t believe it was any good. He didn’t like the portrayal of his characters, his protagonists. Because it didn’t deal with the same messages he had written about. Adults and their problems with relationships. The stress of post-war Vietnam issues. Our film dealt a lot with dogma and following a particular voice. And should the audience believe what they hear? Should they not learn to question and challenge authority? That’s what the film’s really all about. So different points of view from the very beginning caused him to not like things.”
Maybe if King knew what was ahead, he would have gone easier on the first Children of the Corn. If he knew the movie was going to be the most sequelized and rebooted adaptation of his work. As of right now, there are eleven Children of the Corn feature films in existence, and King believes most of them have been awful. He stopped paying attention to the franchise eventually, but was always hoping there would be a Leprechaun crossover. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been. Children of the Corn does have a solid fanbase, which seems to be growing in the age of ‘80s video store nostalgia. Even the overall franchise has its fans (including myself). But negative reactions to many of the sequels appear to have tarnished the reputation of the original film as well. Since some of the follow-ups were bad, the first is sometimes written off as a bad film. But it’s worth checking out and judging on its own merits.
Rolling Stone magazine may have given Children of the Corn the best review it ever received. In 2019, they ranked the film at number seven on their list of the top thirty Stephen King movies, sandwiched between The Shawshank Redemption and Christine. The write-up called it "a lean, brutally tense slasher film" that features “deft weaponizing of American cultural tensions.” That’s giving the film more credit than most critics had before, and it deserves more credit.
It’s not as prestigious as the earlier King adaptations. It’s a low budget B-movie about killer kids. But it’s good, it’s creepy, and it sticks with you. Other filmmakers have tried to replicate what Kiersch and his cast and crew did with this movie, and they haven’t quite managed to reach the same level, although some of the Children of the Corn sequels are definitely worth checking out, too. But if it’s possible to make a better Children of the Corn movie than this one, we haven’t seen it yet.
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