Nope, the 2023 Children of the Corn remake doesn’t fix the franchise

Zac Efron’s Firestarter caught a lot of hell back in early 2022 for being a crappy remake of a Stephen King book-to-film adaptation that wasn’t all that great to begin with. Well, there’s good news for that movie: The 2023 revival of the The Children of Corn franchise is even worse. This is the 11th film and second remake based on King’s 1977 short story about a homicidal cult of children who sacrifice their parents to appease a pagan corn god in rural Nebraska. And while it isn’t the worst film the franchise has to offer, that’s only because the competition is so weak.

All the latest The Corn ChildrenKurt Wimmer was the helm of the organization. He is a traveler type and wrote TheTotal RecallAnd Point BreakFilm remakes. His last appearance as a director came in the year 2000. UltravioletBack in 2006. That’s on brand for Children of the Corn is a film franchise without any notable filmmakers. Wimmer’s direction is competent enough, with tiny little flourishes of style here and there. With a script as bad as this, it’s impossible to save the movie. Wimmer wrote the script, so he is also to blame.

As such, this is not a remake.The Corn Children keeps the concept of kids rising up to kill their parents in the name of “He Who Walks Behind the Rows,” then discards pretty much everything else. Wimmer’s first big mistake is eliminating King’s outside POV on the story, an adult couple trying to understand what went wrong in a seemingly deserted Nebraska town. Elena Kampouris (high school senior) replaces them. Boleyn will soon leave Rylstone in Nebraska and head off to college. Boleyn plans to pursue environmental science in order to help Rylstone overcome a string of poor harvests due genetically modified corn. Everything then falls apart.

Photo by RLJE Films

Boleyn is both an outsider and insider. She’s a kid in Rylstone, so she’s safe from the plan 12-year-old psychopath Eden (Kate Moyer) has hatched to slaughter every adult in town. (The “why” of all this is saved for the end of the movie, and is groan-worthy when it is revealed.) Boleyn is against the plan. Right until it’s too late, she believes there has to be a peaceful solution to the conflict between the town’s squabbling adults and children. The grown-ups are eager to bulldoze Rylstone’s corn crops for the government subsidies and move to Florida. The bloodthirsty children… don’t want to do that. (Again, the “why” is both elusive and dumb.)

Kampouris does her best horror-movie emoting as the plot gets thicker, but Wimmer doesn’t know what to do with Boleyn once the narrative is in motion. She spends most of the movie looking terrified, which is a shame. DoingMuch of everything. Robert, her father, is the same.The Winter Soldier, Captain America’s Callan Mulvey), who throws up his hands and declares that he can’t do anything about the destruction of Rylstone, which makes his character irrelevant for the rest of the movie.

A more successful bit of recasting comes in the form of 14-year-old Moyer, who steals the show as the female equivalent of the original movie’s preteen preacher, Isaac. She’s a mini Joker in the chaotic Heath Ledger/Joaquin Phoenix sense of the character, with additional shades of a genocidal dictator and a murderous cult leader. Moyer gives her all as Eden, and her hammy delivery as this evil, conniving villain is a hoot — in fact, it’s the only truly enjoyable thing about this picture.

A single area in which The Corn ChildrenInexplicably, Wimmer decides to stay faithful to the source material. This is evident in its portrayal of He Who Walkers Behind the Rows. The short story briefly describes him as a hybrid green-man-plant with glowing red eyes. Wimmer follows this lead, overburdening the film’s back with inconvincing CGI effects. One scene is a complete rip-offKing Kong as He Who Walks comes crashing out of the corn to snag a woman who’s bound to a cross.) It’s funny how we see it more than necessary.

Photo by RLJE Films

If The Corn’s ChildrenIt was a stale hybrid of a monster feature and a movie about killer-kids movies, but it could have been quite entertaining. This remake falls apart because it introduces so many sociopolitical themes to which Wimmer does not follow through, raising the question as to whether Wimmer stumbled upon them accidentally. In an age where Gen Z’s climate activism is making waves, it is very relevant to see parents and children clash over environmental stewardship. The movie makes a connection but then loses it. Eden and her supporters rationalize their behaviour step-by-step, in a manner that mirrors how fascists can be made out of ordinary people. Wimmer isn’t interested in that theme either.

It’s frustrating, and attributing these mistakes to incompetence rather than apathy doesn’t make The Corn ChildrenThis movie is even better to enjoy. Watching what potential the movie does have set itself on fire and run out into a dry cornfield by its midway point is strangely underwhelming: There’s a lot of screaming and blood, and kids giggling while clutching rusty farm equipment, but none of it leads to anything. Nary a thought is provoked, and nary an emotion is raised — least of all fear. “Nothing ever dies in the corn,” one kid explains to another before going on a killing spree in the opening scene. Maybe it’s time for this franchise to change that.

The Corn Children It will premiere in cinemas March 3. AmazonAnd VuduApril 21.