This movie started simply, kids decided to kill their parents with no information beyond what their leader(Isaac) told them, which was that he was ordained by God to lead these children. I know, heavy. But for some reason this wasn't as terrifying as it should have been.You are then watching a man(Burt) and a woman(Vicky) who are traveling to Burt's new internship position as a physician. Meanwhile a child is killed and is struck on the road by the couple's car when he staggers out in front of them. When it happens it surprises you, but again no fear. They take the child and search for answers and when they're not able to avoid a little town named Gatlin they decide to go there and find answers, but they find more than what they bargained for. Children have been led to believe that "the one who walks behind the rows" will protect them and lead them to prosperity. This is of course false and Burt realizes this. He is attacked and Vicky is kidnapped.After an explanation from a confused believer, Burt saves Vicky and explains to the children that they have been misled. This is where it gets interesting. A beast consumes one of the children, as it is part of a ritual sacrifice and their leader, Isaac, is sacrificed as well but returns and kills the heretic, Malachai, that sent him to his doom. This was the most thrilling scene.Burt and the confused believer concoct a plan to destroy the beast. They end up removing the demon that was present and leave that God forsaken town.In the end it did have some clever shocks and it stayed true to the Stephen King short story, but it felt dragged along at points. It also doesn't provide the thrill you expect until the last 15 or so minutes. The soundtrack stayed true to its eerie premise and gave an overarching sense of suspense but beyond that it lacked true fear you expect from a horror movie now. But for 1984 I'm sure it was enough and I commend the actors for bringing it to life.

I first watched this movie in its entirety as an adult, but did remember watching parts of it as a kid. It was a pretty intriguing movie about a demonic cult formed of children whose goal is to kill people over 18, and plans on sacrificing a couple who stumbled onto their town, Burt (Peter Horton) and Vicky (Linda Hamilton), to the devil.The plot was fairly fast-paced from start to finish, from the attention-grabbing introduction to the thrilling climax; the concept of a cult with children, them chanting fearlessly and leaving a murderous path in the town, was pretty creepy. The music score was fairly haunting and the acting was quite mediocre - some you might actually find corny and emotionless. But overall, it's a decent horror flick.Grade B

Looking back, I really haven't seen that many Stephen King movies. I'm not going to go through all the work of seeing the miniseries, just his regular feature length movies. The main problem with this film is that it's needlessly padded. There are so many scenes that drag on that just show the characters looking at corn. We never even really get a good idea of what the monster is. Is it actually a manifestation of the corn? This has some of the goofiest scenes I've ever witnessed in a horror movie. We see the monster being represented by a bunch of roots tunneling through the ground. At the end, the monster appears in some weird cartoonish thing.This movie was based on a short story and you can tell. I guess it's hard for me to really hate it, seeing as how it did entertain me with how ridiculous it was. If nothing else, I'll give it credit for starting off a series and it does genuinely seem better than the sequels. This film series actually set a record for most bad entries in any franchise! Seriously, I think there's at least ten bits of material centered on this, probably the most of any Stephen King adaptation. Maybe I'll have to read the story. Isaac is the most entertaining as the zaniest, as pointed out by the Nostalgia Critic. If there's anything legitimately good, it's that the main guy does show some courage at the end. If you have to see this, ignore the sequels. **

The many, and admittedly mostly very poor sequels to Children of the Corn, already prove that the original movie did something very well for them wanting to revisit this concept. From the incredibly creepy opening scene to the introduction of the actual likable two main characters the movie sets the tone of the suspense to come perfectly. There is no weak acting in the movie and even the children do a phenomenal job. Two of them are actually really high in my list of creepiest characters horror movies. And that soundtrack! It's easily just as eerie and effective as the Halloween soundtrack by John Carpenter. Admittedly, this movie has a few weaker scenes but some are so brilliant it easy to forgive the movie for those. The story is quite simple, maybe even thin, but that in no way hurts the atmosphere and the viewer becoming invested in what happens on screen. The first time I watched it I remember being scared at every corner while walking my dog for quite a while, my imagination making the worst out of my actually very peaceful and somewhat boring village! Maybe by today's standards, this movie isn't that scary anymore but I bet many people who haven't seen it yet will still really enjoy this underrated little gem.