Stephen King’s short story “The Children of the Corn” has been catnip to horror filmmakers for nearly fifty years. Originally published in the March 1977 issue of Penthouse, the tale of a quarreling couple who stumble onto a murderous cult of children in a Nebraska cornfield was included the following year in King’s first short story collection Night Shift and subsequently adapted into a 1984 feature film directed by Fritz Kiersch. Night Shift also contains the source material for King classics such as The Mangler, Sometimes They Come Back, Maximum Overdrive, and the upcoming The Boogeyman, but none of the collection’s other 19 stories have had the staying power of “Children of the Corn.” Perhaps due to its evocative title implying barbaric pagan rituals or the eerie juxtaposition between childlike innocence and brutal murder, the original film has spawned eight sequels and two remakes over the course of four decades.
The newest entry into this long-running franchise is Kurt Wimmer’s Children of the Corn, a reimagining of the story with a new town of adults to be slaughtered. Aside from the name, Wimmer’s screenplay bears little resemblance to King’s original tale. Not only does it take place in a new town, Rylstone rather than the doomed Gatlin, the story has been updated for a modern audience to include economic themes and warnings about climate change. The religious aspects of King’s story have been removed, and our hero, Boleyn, is neither a child nor an adult. Played by Elena Kampouris, Bo is a teenager heading to college. The latest in a long line of resourceful final girls, she embodies the optimistic innocence of adolescence while maintaining the rationality of the town’s adults. Despite a dramatically different narrative and conclusion, Wimmer’s Children of the Corn does contain some of King’s themes.
Seeds of nihilism remain and the explosive ending tows the line between the original text and Kiersch’s adaptation while presenting a shocking stinger all its own.
Same Season, Different Stories
King’s short story unfolds like a mystery. We begin with Burt and Vicky, a couple on the brink of divorce driving across the country in a last ditch effort to save their crumbling marriage. When they hit a child stumbling into the road, they’re horrified to discover his throat has been cut by someone hiding in the corn. Looking for help in the closest town, they find Gatlin deserted except for the distant laughter coming from the fields. We never find out exactly what happened to the adults, but the children of Gatlin eventually sacrifice Burt and Vicky to a being they call He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Kiersch’s 1984 film begins with the massacre King hints at. Before joining Burt (Peter Horton) and Vicky (Linda Hamilton), we watch as the children of Gatlin murder everyone above the age of 19 with poisoned coffee and primitive weapons. Despite this bleak beginning, Kiersch’s version of the story ends on a more uplifting tone as Vicky, Burt, and two defecting children seemingly defeat He Who Walks by setting fire to the corn.
The new film begins with a massacre, but this time its the children who are the victims. When a disturbed teen attacks the leaders of an orphanage, local authorities try to subdue him by flooding the building with toxic gas and accidentally kill the kids trapped inside. This horrific tragedy sets the tone for a story much more sympathetic to the children. In dire financial straits, the adults of Rylstone vote to accept government subsidies and halt corn production; a short term solution with long term problems. When the kids voice their concern, the cruel adults mock them and treat the idea that they would have opinions about their own future as an absurdity. Betrayed by their parents, the children form a mutually protective relationship with He Who Walks Behind the Rows and murder anyone who threatens the corn.
Isaac and Eden
King’s original story concludes with a brief look inside the cult and the introduction of a character named Isaac, a nine year old prophet who claims to receive messages from He Who Walks. We don’t learn much about him other than his age, his authority among the children, and his decree that the new age of sacrifice should be 18. Kiersch’s film presents Isaac (John Franklin) as the mastermind behind the townwide slaughter though, in King’s story, this event happens before his birth. Isaac’s equivalent in Wimmer’s version is a girl named Eden (Kate Moyer). Obsessed with the power of the Red Queen from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, she is the only survivor of the orphanage massacre and guides the kids into an eye-for-an-eye mentality.
Like Isaac in the original film, Eden is the unquestioned leader of the children. They kill on her command and trust her to curry favor with He Who Walks. She swaggers from murder to murder with chilling detachment and the children follow her in lockstep. But unlike Isaac, Eden is protected by the corn monster. When Bo holds a serrated knife to her throat, He appears to save her. After Eden is humiliated at the town meeting, He places a comforting green hand on her shoulder while she cries in the corn. King’s He Who Walks is indifferent to the children. He feeds on victims of any age and the kids don’t dare venture into the corn after dark. Kierch’s version of the story sees Isaac actually sacrificed to the corn god after the children reject his leadership.
Awful Adults
King’s original story never gives us a motive behind the original massacre other than explaining that the kids “got religion.” Similarly, Kiersch begins the story after the children have been indoctrinated by Isaac and we only see the town’s adults seconds before they die. Wimmer’s adaptation features a wealth of unlikeable adult characters, from a cheating mother, brazenly careless law enforcement, a predatory preacher, and a drunk father who publicly abuses his sons. There are no redeeming grown-ups to be found and an evening walk reveals a town deeply unsafe for kids. No one would argue Eden’s actions are justified, but these despicable adults feel like the true villains with the corn simply defending itself against eradication.
The original Gatlin elders die before the events of his story, but King does give us some awful adults in his version. Burt and Vicky are insufferable with their constant bickering and condescension. Vicky nags and complains, but Burt is especially cruel. He ignores his wife’s warnings that something is wrong in the empty town and takes her keys while he explores the empty buildings, essentially leaving her helpless and alone in the car. He’s a disgusting character and his death does not feel particularly tragic. Kiersch’s film presents a more likable central couple. Played by Horton and Hamilton, their biggest problem is Burt’s fear of commitment which seems to resolve itself by the end of the film. Both King and Kiersch seemingly side with the adults, but Wimmer muddies the water with allegiances to both ends of the age spectrum. At 17, his hero, Bo, lies somewhere in between.
He Who Walks Behind the Rows
Wimmer’s Children of the Corn gives us something the original adaptation only hints at. King describes He Who Walks Behind the Rows as “something huge, bulking up to the sky … something green with terrible red eyes the size of footballs.” Wimmer gives us this monster, a giant beast made from constantly twisting leaves and stalks. Created with CGI, this monster looks better when lurking in the shadows, but it is an earnest representation of the barbaric deity lurking behind the rows of King’s text for more than four decades. Kiersch’s film leaves He Who Walks to our imagination, with a rapidly moving mound of dirt implying the creature’s movement.
Wimmer’s He is also incredibly violent. King declines to give us details about Burt’s death and leaves most of the violence to the Gatlin children. Kiersch follows suit, only implying a vengeful god waiting to devour trespassers. Wimmer shows us these gruesome sacrifices. We watch as his creature terrorizes adults and rips a woman’s body apart. Eden and her minions are equally vicious. They kill with baseball bats, toxic chemicals, and handheld farm equipment. Rather than slaughter the parents, they force the adults into a large dirt hole and bury them alive with bulldozers. One particularly brutal scene shows Eden gouge a man’s eye out with a dirty sickle then eat the oozing organ.
Righteous Flames
King’s original ending is both nihilistic and terrifying. After Burt and Vicky fall victim to the corn, twenty of Gatlin’s teenagers offer their own lives to the primitive god. With the new sacrificial age now set at eighteen, anyone older must walk into the corn to their doom. He Who Walks Behind the Rows is “well pleased” with this bounty. Both film adaptations end on a more empowering note. Burt and Vicky find a way to spread gasoline through the corn and set it on fire, causing a massive explosion further back through the rows. Bo enacts a similar plan. She slams a car lighter onto a trail of tractor fuel and spreads the flames throughout the corn. Having been possessed by the demonic entity, Isaac is consumed in this fire. Eden trudges into the burning corn walking beside the corn god who takes one last look at his young disciples.
Wimmer’s film ends with a bizarre, but gruesome stinger more aligned with King’s first feature film adaptation, Carrie. Like Sue Snell (Amy Irving) walking to the maligned grave marker, Bo walks into the ruined corn. Stopping to pick up a flower, she remembers a bacteria said to cause mania in nearby towns and hears Eden’s ominous warning: “Nothing ever really dies in the corn.” She looks up to see a burned and skinless Eden screaming in her face before Wimmer cuts to black. Likely intended to evoke the same startled terror as Carrie (Sissy Spacek)’s hand reaching for Sue from beyond the grave, it’s a fun final jump scare even if it doesn’t make a ton of sense.
Eden’s resurrection also sets up a potential sequel and with a franchise this prolific, we will likely be walking behind the rows again soon.
Children of the Corn (2023) is now playing in theaters.
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