Children of the Corn (1984)

Welcome to October of the Corn! That’s right, the same guy who skipped the X-Men: First Class movies because he was sick of franchises is jumping straight into another one right after Mummy Mondays ended. I have to do something productive with all these DVDs that I own, right? So suffer with me, because for the next 10 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (with one exception late in the month), we’re going to talk about no one’s favorite horror franchise. Fun!

Our protagonists for this film are Burt and Vicky. Burt’s actor is certainly a person who has been in things, while Vicky is Mrs. Linda Hamilton a mere 7 months before The Terminator. They’re driving around lost in Kansas when they stumble upon the small town of Gatlin. A few years earlier all the children rose up, killed every adult, and began worshipping He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Of the titular children, the ones worth mentioning are Isaac (their reverend) and Malachai (the muscle). There are also two kids who help Burt and Vicky, but they’re not important. Anyway, Vicky gets captured and shortly after, Malachai gets fed up with Isaac’s shit and makes him a sacrifice to He Who Blah Blah Blah. While Burt saves Vicky, Isaac literally explodes and comes back possessed by the corn… god? Demon? Anyway, Burt saves the day by setting the cornfield on fire and he, Vicky, and those other two kids live happily ever after.

That “happily ever after” may have tipped Stephen King fans that this movie deviated from the short story’s original ending. I’ll get more into that when I talk about 2009’s Children of the Corn SyFy original remake later this month. But what I do want to talk about is Isaac. He’s great in this, which is unusual for a child actor… and that’s because he wasn’t a child! Isaac was played by the mid-20’s, 5-foot-even John Franklin, who also was Cousin Itt from The Addams Family. I loved his performance, so it was a wonderful surprise to find out that he married a man named David in 2008. A queer horror icon! I hope they’re still together and happy, because John Franklin was great in this. And we’ll see him again in Children of the Corn 666: Isaac’s Return, which is not great.