Sunday, October 24, 2010

Malachai Come: Children of the Corn

For every one of my friends I made watch this when we were ten, I'm sorry, but that aside, this film was made for me. Check out the name tag, Grandma, because you're in MY WORLD now.

Children of the Corn, 1984, directed by Fritz Kiersch.

"A boy preacher named Isaac goes to a town in Nebraska called Gatlin and gets all the children to murder every adult in town. A young couple have a murder to report and they go to the nearest town (Gatlin) to seek help but the town seems deserted. They are soon trapped in Gatlin with little chance of getting out alive."


I love this film. It's so crazy and ridiculous and totally eighties, one of the best to come out of the decade, if you ask me. The music is great (and this is where chanting IS warranted), chanting theme with chorus, instrumental, all of it. Sarah's crayon drawings at the opening credits? Genius. The actors get the job done, the script was a great, albeit pretty different flesh-out of King's (extremely) short story, and it's shittin' creepy! 


The opening sequence of all the old timers getting butchered is disturbing. More disturbing is Isaac, the child preacher, standing in the window and the extreme zoom into his sick face while all this is happening. Yuck! Equally gross is his snarling, flailing little spasms when the other members of the flock decide to grab him and hang him up on the cross, he looks and sounds like a rabid mongrel. ("He wants you, too, Malachai, he wants you TOO!")


The special effects for the exploding cornfield were a bit dated, but like I said, it was totally eighties, and I'm fine with it. Some of the natural lighting shots they used inside the abandoned house were kind of neat, just sunbeams shining through the windows and casting shadows, but added to the weird, unsettled feeling of evil in broad daylight that was present in the town. It seems like that kind of thing isn't really done anymore, outside of independent films, that most films' scenes are 100% manufactured down to the last detail. I like seeing rough, cheesey stuff like this, it reminds me of a time without green screens and after effects (without which, hey, my husband wouldn't have a job, but you know what I mean).


The ending admittedly kind of resolves out of no where, all it took for those kids to snap out of it was Burt to yell at them? Kind of weak. However, if someone asked to see my list of favorite eighties horror films, Goddamn, this would be on it. 

2 comments:

Jessica B. said...

I don't care HOW old this film gets, it will always be one of my favorites. CLASSIC!!!

Anonymous said...

is that the kid from can't buy me love?? do you know i have never seen this whole movie?

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