Unseen Terror 2024: King of the Castle Rock (Days 16 & 17)

 

Riding the Bullet is based on one of Stephen King’s lesser-known works, and it was released as the author’s first “online only” publication, available exclusively as an e-book for the low price of $2.50. Thankfully those who don’t wish to stare at a bright screen all day were able to read the novel in a full two years when it was included in his “Everything’s Eventual” collection. It’s one of two stories featured in that release that made its way to the big screen (the other being 2007’s 1408, which I think I’ve seen?). The story is set in the late 60s with a young man (Jonathan Jackson of soap opera mainstay General Hospital) hitchhiking his way to a hospital to see his dying mother, only to be picked up by an eccentric, almost otherworldly figure (David Arquette of Scream fame and former WCW world champion). For most of its running time, Riding the Bullet is edited in such a way that it legitimately started giving me a headache. The amount of cutaway and/or flashback sequences makes you wonder if you’ve accidentally been sucked into a Seth MacFarlane program. I’m also starting to realize that despite my respect for director Mick Garris and his appreciation for horror history and the art of the genre itself, he has a WILDLY inconsistent body of work (at least when he’s sitting in the big chair). I appreciate the little nod to Christine though with the appearances of the infamous Plymouth Fury car. I don’t believe that was present in the source material, but it’s still a cute wink to the audience. It takes about 50 minutes for the flick to get remotely interesting, but that’s only because we finally to get see Arquette pop up as our real antagonist. His wonderfully weird performance alone makes me want to put this into the “tossup” category, because prior to his introduction, it’s just a very mediocre flick.

 

At the end of the day, that’s what Riding the Bullet is: an average, if not slightly dull Stephen King adaptation of a book that nobody seems to talk about anymore. It’s miles ahead of efforts such as Dreamcatcher or The Langoliers, but it’s nowhere near as solid as previously reviewed entries like Gerald’s Game or The Dead Zone. If you’ve got ninety minutes to kill, you could find worse ways to spend your time.

 

Alright, let’s wrap up this round of Stephen King works with…..oh no.

 

 

I’m never going to escape this franchise, am I?

 

If you recall, for last year’s Unseen Terror marathon, I delved into the world of “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” (a.k.a. the Children of the Corn series). In layman’s terms, I truly believe it is the very worst horror movie franchise out there, and that’s because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single good film during its 40-year-long run (The Final Sacrifice is dumb fun, but that’s a faint compliment). I managed to avoid the 2009 “SyFy Channel premiere” remake from 2009 because it seemed almost impossible to find unless you had a region-free Blu-Ray player and an exorbitant amount of money to spend. Crisis (temporarily) averted. Unfortunately, I discovered that some poor soul made the mistake of uploading this to YouTube of all places less than a year ago, so I guess I MUST finally finish this franchise before it finishes me.

 

You should know the basis for Children of the Corn at this point, so I’m not going over the synopsis again. I will say that from a storyline standpoint, this is the most faithful to Stephen King’s original short story (save for Disciples of the Crow from 1983, but that’s considered a short film). That, however, is also its biggest weakness because oh dear lord these are THE most unlikeable protagonists I’ve seen in this entire franchise. When this young couple aren’t spending time bickering with one another, they’re constantly reminding the audience that the husband used to be in the marines or they’re even smacking the wife. While I’m not a screenwriter, I don’t think the series has ever set out to make you root more for the evil kids than anyone intended to be a hero. This is incompetence at its very finest. It doesn’t help that the lead performers (David Anders of iZombie fame and Kandyse McClure from Battlestar Galactica) just don’t seem to vibe well with each other. Did I mention the NAGGING and bickering by the way? Yeah? Well, that’s too bad because it drags this movie down into a hole that it can’t get out of. Also, making fun of someone for serving in Vietnam and likely having PTSD is just fucking gross, especially when the person doing the bullying is supposed to be someone you’re rooting for. There’s also a really mortifying scene involving the members of the congregation watching teenagers fornicate in front of everyone. How classy, how necessary. Ick.

 

2009’s Corn remake sports a sepia tone all throughout its running time that is intended to make this feel creepy, but just makes it look cheap and gaudy. Speaking of “creepy,” I almost miss the over-the-top performances of the original film’s Isaac and Malakai because the new cast of youngins’ just aren’t very good. I hate criticizing the acting of kids, but I feel like everyone looks either disinterested or is just so flat. It’s like the entire cast took their classes from the same guy from the “Shooter’s gonna choke” scene in Happy Gilmore. There’s a cheap bit of nostalgia bait by playing snippets of the original film’s theme, but all it’ll make the audience want to do is revisit that picture instead. I mean, that original film is awful too, but at least it’s memorable.

 

It's very rare for me to genuinely hate a movie when I watch it for this marathon, but I LOATHED nearly every second of 2009’s Children of the Corn. For all the annoyance and anger that came to the surface, there was a moment of respite seeing the annoying wife get blown up in a car (though her corpse is shown later to be in fairly decent-looking condition after she’s crucified on corn stalks). Other than that? It’s pure torture from beginning to end. Fuck this movie, fuck this franchise, fuck the people involved (seriously, how did Vamp screenwriter Donald P. Borchers find himself writing and directing this?), and fuck YouTube for not taking it down immediately. But on the plus side? I’m done with it all now. There are no more movies to watch. No more in development (that I know of). Stephen King has yet to revisit the fictional town of Gatlin, Nebraska. It’s over.

 

Finally.

 

I’m free.

Unseen Terror 2023: Destroy the King's Crops (Days 20-23)

Work sucks. Sorry y'all.

I feel like I owe whoever reads these posts an apology: despite my (not actual) best efforts, I will NOT be able to finish the entire Children of the Corn franchise this year. As it turns out, there seems to be some unseen forces at work because the second adaptation (if we're talking about full-length films) of Stephen King's short story, which premiered on the SyFy Channel back in 2009, is unavailable to stream ANYWHERE. Hell, even the reliable archive.org doesn't seem to have any link to the darn thing. The only way to obtain a physical copy is to purchase a Region 2 Blu-Ray...for SIXTY DOLLARS. I'm unsure as to how much money went into making the picture itself but given the downward spiral of this godawful franchise, I'd bet money that you make your own Children of the Corn film for that same amount. So, perhaps another day.

Nah, probably not. Anyways, let's move on to....

.........Children of the Corn. The 2020 adaptation.

*sigh*

I did approach the newest entry in this exhaustingly long franchise (filmed in 2020 but delayed for three years thanks to various reasons and/or Covid-19) with an open mind. After all, this was being promoted as a soft reboot and you've got a decent writer/director this time around in the form of Kurt Wimmer. Wimmer's body of work is a fascinating one. He only has four directing credits to his name (his best film arguably being Equilibrium), but a LOT more when it comes to writing. Heck, just glancing at his Wikipedia page shows he has three remakes under his belt (Point Break, Total Recall, The Thomas Crown Affair), and even though those weren't all warmly received, there's always a chance this could be a hit.

Then again, sometimes there are just properties that are beyond help, and no matter what fancy coat of paint you try to use on Children of the Corn, it just seems destined to be a putrid mess. The plot of this is more akin to that of a pre-make (ala the 2011 version of The Thing) than a straight-up remake. The only things this feature shares with all preceding entries in this series are corn, creepy kids killing adults, and being set in Nebraska. Oddly enough, the film doesn't seem to offer much in the way of religious fanaticism this time around, and seemingly wants to focus on how small towns can sell out to bigger companies by receiving a crop subsidy. Or something like that. Though I'm open to new ideas, the manner in which this is executed is pretty laughable. The film seems intent on making the adults look like the evil ones this time around, so when the killings begin, suddenly you (and lead actress Elena Kampouris) are supposed to do an immediate 180 and side with them again. It's just kind of a mess.

I'll give credit where it is due though: in terms of casting, this features some folks who I hope will go on to star in bigger and better pictures. The aforementioned Kampouris has the makings of a good scream queen if she chooses to pursue it, and lead villainess Eden (Kate Moyer) is the best baddie we've had in these movies since The Final Sacrifice. Yes, she can occasionally chew the scenery, but she seems fully aware of what this is. Everyone else is fairly forgettable though, and that's the worst thing you can be in a bad Children of the Corn flick. For what is unforgettable (and unforgivable) this time around is the laughably bad CGI and decision to finally give us a "real" look at He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Without going into too many spoilers, I'll just assume that someone in the creative department snuck into 'B' movie company the Asylum's offices late at night and stole their concept art for "that one tree guy from Marvel but made of stalks." Bafflingly terrible, and I can't imagine how much worse it looked on a big screen when it received a very brief theatrical run this year (the first entry to go to cinemas since Part II).

My viewings of films released during this year have been very limited, but I'll go on record in saying that I doubt I'll see a worse flick than this in the horror genre for 2023. It isn't the very worst Children of the Corn picture, but even by its lower-than-low standards it's VERY bad. Currently, it's streaming as an "exclusive" for Shudder, but please watch literally anything else on there. They're very nice people over there with an excellent catalog of movies to choose from, but not everything warrants a watch.

Remember when I briefly alluded to the 2009 Children of the Corn film being (technically) the second FULL-LENGTH adaptation of King's short story? Well, that's because I made the very strange discovery while assembling this year's list that there was a short film that preceded 1984's Children of the Corn by a whole year, but due to the name rights being snatched up so soon, wasn't legally allowed to call itself that. 1983's Disciples of the Crow is a fairly straightforward handling of the source material, though with a microbudget and some slight alterations. For example, this is set in Oklahoma rather than Nebraska, and the characters of Malachai and Isaac are nowhere to be found. The lead characters are also far more irritating, which if memory serves me correctly was also the case in King's short story. Points for authenticity?

Anyways, it runs for about twenty minutes and isn't that bad. Not required viewing, but it's up on YouTube for those who are curious.

And since we're speaking of YouTube...

Three years ago, I watched and reviewed the rather infamous fan favorite film Phallus in Wonderland, starring everyone's most feared and beloved interplanetary conquerors GWAR. The Antarctica-based madmen are truly one of a kind in the world of musical entertainment, and it's easy to forget just how much stuff they've delved into besides releasing full-length albums and murdering every living being with a Wikipedia page. For example, I wasn't aware that there wasn't just one picture Gwar produced and starred in, but several. Skulhedface was released around the same time that Gwar's fourth album hit the shelves (the brilliantly titled "This Toilet Earth") and was reportedly considered for a theatrical release. However, the MPAA deemed that it could never be released as anything other than NC-17 and since it was far too graphic to edit down to an 'R' rated film, it just went straight to VHS instead.

The plot is...well, how do you go into anything Gwar-related without making yourself giggle just a bit when typing it out? Our beloved "Scumdogs" are hosting a telethon wherein people are being offed and fed to appease the creature known as the "World Maggot." If they offer enough sacrifices to the beast, there is a chance that Gwar would finally be able to leave this godforsaken dumpster fire of a planet. Elsewhere, an evil media corporation known as "GlomCo" has taken notice of these events and decide to bribe Gwar's manager (Sleazy P. Martini) into selling the group out to make Saturday morning cartoons. To nobody's surprise, this doesn't go well, and soon the band comes face to face with a dastardly being known simply as Skulhedface.

Still with me?

Look, this is exactly what you think it is. It's debaucherous, immature, gross, and loud. So, in other words, if you're a fan of Gwar (like me) you'll be quite content for the entirety of its hour-long running time. Also, getting Sebastian Bach of Skid Row and Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys for small parts is brilliant casting. It's currently streaming on YouTube.

Thought we were done with Stephen King, eh? Well, it turns out I had completely forgotten that 2017's Gerald's Game had been sitting in my Netflix queue for several years with no reason as to why it never left. Hell, damn near everyone and their mother had been discussing it and I just kept replying with stuff along the lines of "yeah, I'll get to eventually." Well, what better time than after I've been beaten over the head with cornstalks and soaked with alien fluids?

...erm, anyway.

The plot for Gerald's Game is centered on married couple Jessie and Gerald (played by Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood respectively), who rent an isolated lake house for a romantic getaway. In an attempt at spicing things up in their love life, Jessie agrees to take part in some "kinky" roleplaying, which leaves her handcuffed to the bedposts. Initially Jessie plays along with her husband's idea, but then grows uncomfortable with this "fantasy" that Gerald seems to have, and after a heated argument, her husband suddenly drops dead from a heart attack. Trapped to two bedposts and with seemingly no way to free herself, Jessie has to devise a way to escape all while battling not just dehydration, but inner demons and hidden trauma.

Like a lot of King's best works, Gerald's Game can take something so simple (though not without potential of terrible consequences) and make it the most nightmarish scenario possible. Being stuck in an area and environment that she's unfamiliar with (and which is surprisingly claustrophobic), you truly feel scared for Jessie. I've long been a champion of Carla Gugino (Sin City, Spy Kids, The Haunting of Hill House) as an incredibly underrated actress, and she might be giving the performance of her life here. Bruce Greenwood (Thirteen Days, Star Trek) also plays an equally good part of what makes this work so well, delivering a slimier performance than expected considering that the "real" Gerald (not a spoiler!) dies quite early in the film. Truth be told, there isn't a single bad performance in here whatsoever, but it really is Gugino's time to shine here, and she knocks it out of the damn stadium. Give the woman her damn flowers. Perhaps if there was one complaint I have about Gerald's Game, it would be the very odd and jarring final ten minutes or so, which unfortunately adds fuel to the fire of King's critics who say that he can't quite write a proper ending without something preposterous occurring. I can't say that I disagree with that statement either, and the more I thought about it, the more it does hurt this film's potential as a future "re-watch."

The final few minutes aside, Gerald's Game is absolutely stellar. Great acting, great tension, and a very faithful adaptation of a very underrated (and often thought unfilmable) book. As stated above, it's streaming as a Netflix exclusive.

Did I mention that it's also the first film this month to make me actively wince and elicit a genuine "oh good lord no?" 

No? Well, it did.

Unseen Terror 2023: Lovejoys and Killjoys (Days 14-15)

Don't worry, we're getting close to finishing this godforsaken series and leaving Gatlin, Nebraska forever. In fact, around the halfway point of Children of the Corn: Runaway (the TENTH entry in this franchise that has somehow spawned more sequels than other horror franchises such as Elm Street), I came to the realization that I had already laid my poor eyes upon this flick once before. Maybe it was a drunken rental from the Redbox, but it may have also been due to morbid curiosity. Most likely it was both. Perhaps a lengthy hiatus between viewings and approaching it with little-to-nothing in terms of memories retained would make for a better re-watch. After all, that's been my experience when revisiting flicks like Martyrs and Dead Heat, which I initially didn't care for but now genuinely enjoy.

Despite being more competently made this time around, the plot (centered around a then-pregnant woman who escaped Gatlin) is a jumbled mess with far too many "creepy vision" sequences and a LOT of nothing going. The plot twist in its third act is ridiculous, the color palette makes you wish you were watching other films from around 2018 and before, and all of the franchise's staples are poorly represented (if not ignored). If you're looking to see what other tricks "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" has up its sleeve or want to see some crazy corn-related crap, you're going to be sorely disappointed. I'm genuinely surprised that this has the name of John Gulager attached to it, as I really enjoyed his first directorial debut Feast and even aspects of that movie's sequels. I wonder if perhaps there was someone in Hollywood whose hands he forgot to shake at a dinner party. Around this time, he also took part in the equally dreadful Hellraiser: Judgement, which much like Children of the Corn: Runaway, was also made so that Dimension wouldn't lose the rights to a series that could potentially fall back into talented hands. Digging around a bit I did discover that both of these films shared a filming location with one another, which could explain why both look so hideous and cheap. Truly there is no better way to kill two birds with one stone...at least in the realm of bottom tier sequels. Toss it in the garbage.

I wasn't overly familiar with 1985's Too Scared to Scream, but many moons ago I recalled hearing Chuck Dowling of the BMFCast (and another "31 Horror Movies in 31 Days" maestro) discuss how this was one of the best surprises he came across while he was still doing his own yearly marathon. All it takes is one glance at the cast list and you'll see why I finally decided to give this one a try. For starters, Ian McShane (Deadwood, Lovejoy, John Wick) is in a 1980s horror film! You've also got Anne Archer (Fatal Attraction), John Heard (Big, Home Alone), and Mike Connors (Mannix) on the lineup, with an extra bonus of actor Tony Lo Bianco (The French Connection, The Honeymoon Killers) sitting in the director's chair. An exceptional list of talents that all ultimately end up producing a pretty okay little picture.

The plot of Too Scared to Scream is nothing flashy. Someone has been murdering the tenants of a plush, high-rise apartment building in New York, and it's up to a couple of officers to discover who the perpetrator is. Their primary suspect is the doorman who works evening shifts (a rather handsome Ian McShane), who seems a tad too polite and has a rather eccentric relationship with his mother. Without diving into spoiler territory, it unfolds exactly how you think it will, yet still packs a few surprises in for good measure. While watching, I kept wondering how much of a nightmare it must have been trying to market this to the "blood and guts" crowd which dominated the box office when it came to scary movies. It values substance and procedural work over style yet was still pushed as a "slasher" film (it's got plenty on the "nekkid" side of things though). The poster seems to be a clear homage to the Italian "Giallo" subgenre, but it lacks a lot of the over-the-top nature that is a mainstay of those films. It's also got a lot of "wacky sitcom" moments (the scene with a police informant outside of a nightclub HAS to be seen to be believed) that can occasionally kill the serious tone. Still, it all mostly works. Unfortunately, just when this film was in my good graces, its ending stretch brings the whole thing to a screeching halt and filled me with that same frustration that I felt when I watched Dressed to Kill for the first time (another Giallo-influenced thriller). To call it problematic is being kind.

Too Scared to Scream is ALMOST a great movie. The acting is solid, the style is just the right mix of American slasher, fun 1970s cop TV program, and Italian Giallo mystery, and it's a pretty quick watch. Still, those final ten minutes are VERY rushed and the killer's reveal/motivations kind of takes the wind out of the picture's sails. I'd still give it a recommendation overall, but I was so saddened by what could have been. Currently, it's unavailable for purchase in the states outside of the VHS market and a rather pricey Blu-Ray released by Ronin Flix, but if you don't want to take that approach, there's always the streaming route. Heck, I watched my copy on YouTube (*cough cough*)

Unseen Terror 2023: Rotting Crops (Days 9-10)

 *sigh*

I didn't fully anticipate returning to this fucking franchise so soon, but I'm going to be rather busy over the next couple of days. Thus, these have been bumped up in the watching order for the marathon. Seeing as how these films aren't exactly setting the world on fire, it's easier to just get these out of the way now rather than later.

Regarding the seventh entry in this franchise, Children of the Corn: Revelation's core plot is nearly identical to that of the previous picture. Swap out a missing mother for a missing grandmother, place a majority of the film inside of a dingy apartment building, and reduce the budget to something that looks like it would be easier to make on an iPhone.........an ORIGINAL iPhone. On the plus side, there is a scene wherein our heroine (who is thankfully nowhere near as idiotic as Part 6's was) runs into two of the atypical, mute creepy children at a convenience store and shows them how to play The House of the Dead. Why you'd be encouraging kids who already have murderous looks on their faces and who never speak to learn how to hold and wield weapons properly is beyond me, but it did make me nostalgic for that Arcade classic. Heck, watching a playthrough of that video game on YouTube would likely produce more excitement than the entirety of this flick. Also, we have Michael Ironside popping in for approximately five minutes as a priest and his presence is always appreciated (he's also the best Darkseid across all media depictions of the fictional villain. Do not argue with this).

I suspect that the "revelation" in Children of the Corn: Revelation is that apparently this is the first film in the franchise to feature nudity but seeing as how I'm not a prepubescent kid anymore, this ultimately means nothing in the long run. Oddly enough, the actress who bares most of everything (Crystal Lowe) has a weird connection to yesterday's entry: both her and Carrie (2002) co-star Chelan Simmons played ditzy best friends in 2006's Final Destination 3 and are both burned alive in tanning beds. Far from a perfect flick, but infinitely more watchable and competent than this pile of garbage.

Children of the Corn: Revelation is bad, cheap-looking (we're talking PlayStation 1-levels of bad computer graphics/CGI) , and dull as shit. Heck, it doesn't even have an overly boisterous, adolescent preacher as is seemingly customary for this series until its third act, and even then, he's overdubbed beyond belief. It's junk. Let's move on.

Over ten years had passed since the release of the dismal Children of the Corn: Revelation and Dimension Films were close to losing the rights to the franchise. Therefore, Part 8 of the series (subtitled Genesis) was rushed into production and spat out from the depths of hell to torment any individual who has yet to consider self-immolation as a way to avoid covering these movies. They also released it under their "Dimension Extreme" line in hopes that it would garner further attention. Said line covered multiple genres, including animal-related horror (Rogue, Black Sheep), horror-comedies (Teeth, Feast II & III), absolute nightmare fuel (Inside), sex comedies starring actors who should have known better (Extreme Movie), and infamous misfires (DOA: Dead or Alive, Hellraiser: Revelations). I could be here all night recanting tales of how many of these studios employed this tactic around this time period, but suffice to say most of those flicks are either collectors' items now or buried somewhere in a Big Lots warehouse. This is all to say that the 8th entry in this franchise (save for a remake/new adaptation of the short story released on SyFy two years prior), despite featuring leads that seem to have decent chemistry, a smaller scale, and a mercifully short running time, is ultimately a waste.

Perhaps the greatest of sin of Genesis is how badly rushed it feels. If you were to tell me that this script was laying around Dimension's offices and it was picked out for a slight retooling, it'd be hard not to believe you. The same thing was prevalent with another Dimension-owned property: Hellraiser. A large chunk of that franchise's sequels were never originally written as Hellraiser films, but with a couple of tweaks here and there, they were dumped onto home video just so they wouldn't run the risk of losing the cenobites to someone who genuinely wanted to make a great movie again (I still haven't seen the 2022 update, though I imagine it can't be as catastrophically bad as Hellworld). Because of that, so little time is dedicated to what even makes the prior entries...well, I suppose I'd say "popular" with its fans. For starters, no kid preachers. Hell, this film barely features any children whatsoever. A majority of its running time is spent watching our heroes (a young couple who seek shelter after their car breaks down) argue with one another, with the late Billy Drago and Hostel's Barbara Nedeljakova chewing the scenery like it's fresh tobacco. Perhaps more baffling is the lack of actual cornfields to be found (unless you count the one seen in actress Kelen Coleman's dream). As lowbrow as this series can be, those are two staples of the series that have to be present. It's like having Jason Voorhees battling campers outside of Camp Crystal Lake or Freddy Krueger without the sweater and dream sequences.

God help me I just lectured these filmmakers about how they're doing the Children of the Corn series incorrectly.

Not much else to say. I'm fairly disappointed in myself that this is the final film I've watched as a 37-year old sad sack who spends too much time on the internet (though it is somewhat fitting). Let's hope better things are on the horizon for this marathon and for the next 365 days in general.

Unseen Terror 2023: Corn on the Crap (Days 4-5)

 To answer yesterday's question proposed towards the end of the reviews:

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (woop woop?) is a first in this series, as it shares no history or connections with prior installments in this franchise. This time, it focuses on a young woman returning to her small-town home in Grand Island, Nebraska to watch over her agoraphobic mother (genre veteran Karen Black). The kids all over town suddenly start getting sick and people have dreams of an adolescent preacher with a burned face harassing them and...man I'm tired of this already. Supposedly, there is a deleted scene on physical releases of the film which does allude to "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," but it was cut for reasons that I'm still uncertain of. Whether that scene remained intact or not, it is highly doubtful that it would have improved the quality of Part IV. I mean, when your movie opens on a goddamn dream sequence, you are usually asking for trouble. What's worse is how MANY are scattered throughout its entirety (one scene contains a nightmare within a nightmare). It's a scare tactic that drives me absolutely bonkers, and more often than not works only if your film steers more towards the comedic side of things. Funny this movie is not though.

Something I forgot to mention in my prior review for Urban Harvest was the (very) brief film debut of Charlize Theron. She's uncredited and in the film for approximately ten seconds or so, but it counts. The reason why I'm bringing that up this time around is because this also serves as a first for another respected actress: it's the first time that celebrated performer Naomi Watts receives top billing in a film. She is doing the best that she can to make this work, but unfortunately the bland script (seems to be a common problem with these sequels) just feels like a dumbed down version of A Nightmare on Elm Street mixed with elements from Village of the Damned. There is a small chance such a concept as that could have worked were people allowed time to tweak and rewrite some parts, but it just kind of crumbles underneath the weight of so many stupider elements.

This entry in the Children of the Corn series really wishes it could stand alongside with unfairly maligned "sequels" like Halloween III: Season of the Witch, but it just can't seem to do anything right. Yes, there are two good kills to be found (corn scythe through the head and bisection via hospital gurney), but it is such a slog to get through. If you pass by this on MAX, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video, just keep on moving.

Don't stop on this one though. It's arguably just as foul as Part IV.

Unlike its predecessor, Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror IS connected to the first three films, as a group of not-teenagers come across an eccentric small town and run afoul of a crazed little asshole (this time Adam Wylie of Picket Fences and Hey Arnold! fame) who worships He Whose Name I'm Tired of Typing Out. Weird shit and bad acting commence.

Oddly enough, this is the first sequel I've seen to date where I recognized WAY too many of the on-screen performers. We've got Alexis Arquette (Bride of Chucky, Pulp Fiction), Fred Williamson (Black Caesar, From Dusk till Dawn), David Carradine (Kung Fu, Kill Bill), and Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th Parts 7-10, Hatchet). There's also a more prominent actress that I'll address further down. Everyone is doing their best to pretend that they're not just teenagers, but likeable (spoilers: neither works). Fields of Terror is also the first Children of the Corn sequel released during the post-Scream slasher/horror revival that swept the nation, but it lacks any of the substance or fun that made even any of those movies so respected (I doubt you could have paid Kevin Williamson enough to write this). If Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer were Nirvana and Soundgarden, this is Puddle of Mudd. Or Lifehouse.

Fun (albeit sad) fact about Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror: this marks the film debut of yet another prolific actress (this time Eva Mendes), and she was so appalled by her performance in this that she hired an acting coach almost immediately afterwards. Say what you will about her choice in projects after this dropped, but even the smelliest of cinematic trash piles like The Spirit or Ghost Rider are FAR superior to this piece of junk. I can't really be terribly angry about her performance though, as every single character in this is either a douchebag, boring, or utterly moronic. Thankfully the film's running time is only about eighty minutes, so you don't have to spend an exorbitant amount of time with them.

I'm not sure what else I can say about these flicks. They're getting progressively stupider and duller. I'm kind of stunned that this was written and directed by Ethan Wiley, who also wrote & directed the superbly underrated House II: The Second Story (still waiting on a Dogapillar plush guys!). Just go seek that out instead and let this burn in the fields.

While we're still on the topic of surprisingly competent names being attached to these cinematic abortions, let's jump right into Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return. This time we're right back in Gatlin, as we follow young woman Hannah (played by Get Real's Natalie Ramsey) and her decision to go back to the town she was smuggled out of when she was an infant before the murders began. Despite her repeatedly running into unwelcoming individuals EVERYWHERE in this town, she still insists that she must find her birth mother. Soon, we see the return of Isaac from the very first Corn flick (played by a returning John Franklin), an embarrassing waste of Nancy Allen, and a whole lot of nonsense involving evil sheriffs, Stacy Keach, and cheap jump scares.

This was perhaps the most frustrating and boring of these films to date, as there are a multitude of things that could have been fixed in order to make this mildly watchable. For starters, please don't make your main character this idiotic. I know that it's an unspoken rule of horror cinema that your protagonist will make the occasional baffling decision, but from the very beginning, the character of Hannah is irrationally stupid and ignores literally EVERY warning sign before her (this includes every single person she comes into contact with being either a creep or crazed). I'm fairly certain that the cast of Scary Movie were more intelligent. As for her insistence of wanting to desperately discover who her mom was or what she did? Well, I would like to propose that both Ancestry.com and Google Search were founded prior to the canonical events in this. Plus, the Gatlin murders and whatnot are still out there for the world to read about. Christ on a kernel.

Perhaps the biggest waste of potential in this comes from what would most likely catch the attention of experienced genre fans: the return of Isaac, who despite being enveloped by the same stuff that messed up William Hurt during the end of Altered States, was apparently in a coma after the events in Part 1. John Franklin was debatably the best part of the first Children of the Corn, and he also co-writes the script for Part 6. Unfortunately, he is barely utilized during its short running time (this is one of those cases where I would've welcomed a performer inserting themselves into the movie as often as they could) and the inclusion of the character ultimately just adds to the pointless nature of the whole shebang. It's a similar problem I had with 2018's The Predator, wherein they introduce a character that is supposed to be the offspring of Gary Busey's character from Predator 2 (he's even played by Jake, Gary's actual son). It adds nothing to the film. Also, there's the sudden revelation that Isaac has a child now. Admittedly, I know very little about what can be done with a body while its comatose, but I'm fairly certain that.... hold up, wasn't he still a kid when?...And his own child is a teenager now? I'm so perplexed and angry and grossed out. Just.....no. No. No. No. No.

*sigh* Okay, I'm vetoing the decision to finish this series (at least for now). These are starting to kill whatever brain cells I have left.