Marvel star's horror remake lands rare RT rating
Captain America: The Winter Soldier star Callan Mulvey's remake of Stephen King's Children of the Corn has been ripped apart by critics.
Based on the iconic author's 1977 short story, which inspired 10 horror movies (including Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice and Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return), the latest finds Equilibrium director Kurt Wimmer in the driving seat.
The plot itself centres on psychopathic 12-year-old Eden (played by The Handmaid's Tale's Kate Moyer), who recruits a bunch of kids to seize control of a Nebraskan town after becoming possessed by a dying spirit.
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Ahead of Children of the Corn's delayed theatrical release – the movie had its premiere screening way back in October 2020 – it's earned a rare 0% rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes at time of writing.
Check out some review snippets below:
"Children of the Corn tries to adapt King's story to new sensibilities and fails. But what's worse is that the movie never escapes the pacing of an average horror movie. No surprises are waiting for fans daring to walk on the new corn fields, and even the gore is made less effective by the overuse of digital effects.
"The characters, in general, are also reduced to single personality traits and will stick with a one-dimensional response to the chaos around them for the entire duration of the movie. So, while the Children of the Corn franchise is full of subpar entries, the new feature still has trouble leaving a lasting impression."
"Alas, nothing stays dead in the corn, and the same applies to franchises that need to stay buried. However, Kurt Wimmer may have found a way to do that with this misfire. At least the kids looked like they were having fun…"
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"Nothing about Children of the Corn works. Motivations are confusing at best, and Wimmer never manages to set up who these characters are, let alone establish any rules or world-building that would explain why they behave so erratically.
"Early dialogue hints toward timely themes that never get explored. The horror pulls its punches. While its current form suggests a movie edited to death, excising scenes that might've explained some of this, it's hard to spot any potential among the remaining pieces."
"Children of the Corn remake is an exploration of how apathetic direction and a lethargic screenplay can make a cult horror franchise created by Stephen King seem like the dullest thing ever captured on film.
"The 92-minute film pulls off the impressive feat of moving at a molasses pace without creating any suspense, subjecting us to what seems like half an hour of town meeting speeches before we get to see anyone die in a corn field. What should have been a stupidly fun piece of camp horror ends up unfolding like an episode of Yellowstone written by Thornton Wilder starring the worst community theatre actors on the planet."
"The storytelling is sketchy and splintered, the visual tone over-bright yet unsure. At one point the children are standing in a giant hole, dug so that they can bury the adults alive. They're painting the corn roots with blood sacrificed from a dripping animal, and they do it with the dutiful glumness of kids on a school field trip.
"The blood looks like it was made from high-fructose corn syrup — which, in Children of the Corn, may be an extreme case of horror turning into its own derivative."
Children of the Corn hits US cinemas for a limited time this Friday (March 3) before streaming on Shudder from March 21.
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