Title:
Children Of The Corn (2009)
Stars:
Daniel Newman, David Anders, Kandyse McClure, Preston Bailey, Ryan Betroche,
Jake White, Austin Dreher, and Alexa Nikolas
Writers:
Donald P. Borchers and Stephen King
Based on
the Short Story by: Stephen King
Director:
Donald P. Borchers
Running
Time: 120 minutes with commercials
Media:
TNT Original Television Motion Picture (NTSC DVD Screener)
Premiere
Saturday, September 26, 2009 at 9pm (ET/PT) 8 (CT)
Network:
Syfy (Check your local cable/satellite listings for channel)
TV
Rating: Not Available At The Time Of Review
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
Just as
remakes of previous Stephen King dramatizations have found their way to
television or back to television as was the case with the 2004 adaptation of Salem’s
Lot, now on the 25th Anniversary of the theatrical release of Stephen
King’s Children Of The Corn, which is available on DVD and Blu-ray Disc
through Starz/Anchor Bay Entertainment, Syfy will premiere the 2009 made for
television remake that features Stephen King as a co-writer on the teleplay
along with the film’s director Donald P. Borchers. Stephen King had written a
draft of a screenplay for the original 1984 theatrical release, but that was not
used and the result was a film that deviated from the short story in many ways
and despite spawning six sequels, never the less was a disappointment for fans
of King’s original short story.
Now we
have a second adaptation that is more faithful to the short story than the
feature film and improves upon it in many ways. David Anders (Heroes) and
Kandyse McClure (Battlestar Galactica) star as a young unhappily married
couple driving to California who take a back road off the interstate and end up
in a road surrounded by an ocean of cornfields in Nebraska. It’s 1975 so there
are no cell phones or anything remotely available for our protagonists to use to
call for help when they accidentally run over a kid who was holding his throat,
which has been cut as he stumbled out of the cornfield. After more selfish
bickering, they place the body in the trunk and head into the town of Gatlin
where a pagan cult of murderous kids that worship a malevolent entity they think
is God are waiting to kill them since they believe it is a test they must pass
for the continued favor of He Who Walks Behind The Rows.
Comparatively
speaking, I think this version is better than the 1984 version, but it is not
without it’s problems. For one thing the protagonists are so unlikable because
they are both at each other’s throats when the kids aren’t trying to cut
theirs that I found myself rooting for the kids, who are better defined and
actually I think develop far more sympathy from the viewer because they are so
mislead. These are kids that believe that they are following the God of the Old
Testament and thus are fearful of wrath and the gruesome death that awaits them
all when they turn 19 and have to sacrifice themselves to He Who Walk Behinds
The Rows by walking into the cornfield at dusk. The entity keeps fresh souls
coming to it by having the kids procreate at an earlier age and thus without any
adult supervision, they never grow to an age where they dare question what they
are doing because now they are born into it. This is their religion. They
don’t know anything else.
There are
some gory scenes in the TV movie as well as one scene that I am positive will
keep kids up at night. The other problem with the film is in developing a short
story into a TV movie, there isn’t really much that happens until half way
through the film and then take into consideration commercial breaks and I think
the film would have been better if it were shorter, like an hour or so instead
of ninety plus minutes without commercials. There are some good performances
here particularly to Daniel Newman who plays Malachai, a character that was made
memorable by Courtney Gains in the original is here both menacing and yet there
is something almost honorable about the guy. He also shares some of the best
lines of the movie with young Preston Bailey (Dexter), who plays his role
as Isaac with enough fanaticism and twisted self-righteousness that he seems
like a little Quaker from Hell. We see that these kids have created their own
families and what happens at times is heartbreaking.
Overall I
think the attempt to make the story feature length for television may have been
a mistake and instead this should have been an episode of a Stephen King
anthology, but that said, Children Of The Corn is another example why
most of the time, the work of Stephen King works better on television than the
big screen with few exceptions. Children Of The Corn will premiere on
Saturday, September 26, 2009 at 9pm (ET/PT)/ 8pm (CT) on Syfy.
©
Copyright 2009 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.