Children of the Corn
All actors and roles (10)
All team (22)
Short description
A young couple driving through Nebraska toward Seattle, where Burt is to begin a job at a hospital, run into trouble when their car strikes a boy's body on the road. Burt, a doctor, quickly works out that the child was not killed by the vehicle but stabbed. Searching for help, the pair makes their way to the small town of Gatlin, which lies surrounded by cornfields that stretch to the horizon and where no adults remain. The town's children have turned on their elders and now live apart under the rule of a boy preacher named Isaac, who forbids games and directs their devotion toward something dwelling in the fields. Two children, Sarah and Job, seem unlike the rest, and Burt and Vicky try to get them out of the town, drawing the anger of Isaac and his enforcer Malachai.
Fritz Kiersch directed the film, his first feature, from a screenplay by George Goldsmith; Donald P. Borchers and Terrence Kirby produced. It was followed in Kiersch's filmography by Tuff Turf, Gor and Under the Boardwalk. Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton play the couple, with R. G. Armstrong as Diehl, John Franklin as Isaac, Courtney Gains as Malachai and Anne Marie McEvoy as Sarah.
Released in March 1984, the film runs 92 minutes and took about 15 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 5.6/10 from roughly 62,000 votes, and on TMDB 5.7/10 from about 1,200 votes. A critics' score of 4.5/10 from 34 reviews places it below even those modest audience figures.
What's left behind the scenes
- On Burt's car dashboard lies the book "Night Shift" – a collection of stories by Stephen King, which included the story "Children of the Corn".
- Almost all the filming took place in cornfields; props were used only in a few scenes.
- All scenes featuring R.G. Armstrong were filmed in one day.
- In the original trailer for the film, King's name is misspelled as Steven instead of Stephen.
- The movement of 'He Who Walks Behind the Rows' was achieved using a device called a 'turtle.' This was an inverted wheelbarrow with additional wheels. It was placed on rails in a trench, connected to a pulley system which, in turn, was attached to a tractor, covered with a tarpaulin, and then covered with a layer of earth and vermiculite (a non-combustible insulating material). The tractor pulled all of this along, the 'turtle' moved under the tarpaulin, creating the appropriate visual effect. The trench was dug by local Boy Scouts who were interested in visiting the set and learning how special effects were created.
- In Stephen King's short story 'Children of the Corn' (1977), 'He Who Walks Behind the Rows' is a huge, green monster with red eyes. The original script called for the monster to appear on screen. It would try to save itself by destroying the irrigation system, but would ultimately perish. However, the film's artist couldn't come up with a way to depict the monster, and director Fritz Kiersch decided that, since the film's budget wouldn't allow for anything truly impressive, the audience should imagine the appearance of 'He Who Walks Behind the Rows' themselves.
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