Episode 52 - Masters Of Horror Part 2

The Fly - Meek scientist Seth Brundle ( Jeff Goldblum) has been secretly working on an incredible new technological breakthrough for past six years. He hadn't told anyone about it until he met Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) at a science expo. Bringing her back to his home in an old warehouse, Seth demonstrates his invention to Veronica: a set of pods which can teleport objects between them. Veronica, a reporter for a science journal, secretly records a conversation with Seth and plans to become famous by writing about the invention, but her boss (and ex-boyfriend) Stathis Borans (John Getz) doesn't believe that what she's telling him is true, even with her taped conversation. When Seth catches up to Veronica he convinces her to hold off on publishing the story until he can perfect the machine, which as of yet, has been unable to transport an animate object without mutilating it. After several tests and a lot of time spent together, not only do Seth and Veronica fall in love, but they also finally discover how to successfully teleport living things. One night, drunk and suspecting that Veronica is cheating on him with Stathis, Seth teleports himself with his invention, becoming the first human to undergo the process. When Seth begins to grow stronger and more agile, he believes that his creation has made him better than before, but when his skin begins to deteriorate and he becomes violent and angry, he realizes that something is wrong. Checking his computer files, Seth discovers that a fly had gotten into the machine with him when he first teleported and that the machine spliced their DNA together. Now Veronica can only stand by and watch as Seth is transformed into something inhuman. Where to begin? The Fly is a film centered around an age-old science fiction premise with a brilliant new twist. The premise: teleportation. The twist: what happens when two living things occupy the same teleporter at the same time? Writer/director David Cronenberg answers this question with style. The direction and pacing of The Fly are perfect. In every scene a new question is raised regarding either the technology of the film or the main character's transformation. For someone inclined to have to think while watching their movies, you couldn't ask for much more. Sometimes the directions that the movie takes are so strange and repulsive that I'm honestly surprised that it was as well-recieved and acclaimed as it was. Jeff Goldblum, who seems to usually be stuck in supporting roles, proves in one fell swoop why he is so deserving of being a leading man as Seth Brundle. When he stutters and gives awkward glances to Geena Davis' character you honestly feel as though you're looking at someone who has had no human contact for six years, and then he can turn around and go off on a rant about random science-related topics and totally convince the viewer that he is excited and knowledgeable about the subject. Then, when the transformation of Seth Brundle into "Brundle Fly" begins to occur, Goldblum seems to completely lose himself in the act of becoming an illogical creature. This is by far the best performance that I have seen from Jeff Goldblum. Equally impressive is Geena Davis, whose character doesn't go through all of the changes that Goldblum's does, but must react and respond to the unbelievable events that occur. The emotional roller coaster that the character of Victoria is taken on because of Seth Brundle's experiments is deftly pulled off by Davis in every instance. The one slight drawback in the cast is John Getz's Stathis Borans, who often seems a little forced and not as emotionally natural as his counterparts. This doesn't manage to detract from the overall experience, though. Next on the docket are the special effects. The Fly is a movie (like many others) that would most likely be horrible had it been made a decade later. The mid-eighties was the perfect time for such a make-up effects-heavy movie to be made. The different stages of transformation between the human Brundle and the mutated creature that he becomes are all beautifully achieved without the use of CG. Body parts falling off and skin being shed are somewhat fake, but joyous to watch. Another great effect comes when Seth uses his acidic vomit to burn an enemy. Trying to decipher how the effect was achieved is almost as fun as just watching it happen. Also, seeing Seth climb from the ceiling to the wall, and finally back to the floor is very intriguing to behold. The fact that this effect was performed by rotating the set as opposed to using computer effects is purely delightful. As I said before, I'm not really sure how The Fly managed to squeeze through the margins of what is widely accepted in film because of how dark and disturbing that it often is, but it certainly feels like a victory for fans of gory horror movies that don't dumb themselves down for the masses.

Videodrome - Imagine a world where VHS tapes are still the most advanced technology in the film-viewing world. It is in this world that there lives a man named Max Renn (James Woods). Max is an executive at a sleazy cable television channel that goes out of it's way to push the boundaries of sex and violence. In search of a new show for his station, Max and his co-worker Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) have stumbled upon a pirate satellite feed called "Videodrome" which shows very convincing scenes of torture and murder. Max is immediately intrigued and enlists the help of a television promoter with connections named Masha (Lynne Gorman) to track down it's creators. When Renn's girlfriend Nicki (Deborah Harry) finds a Videodrome tape in his collection, she too becomes obsessed with the show, and after telling Max that she is going to Pittsburg for an assignment, instead tracks down the show herself to become a part of it. Max tries to stop Nicki after discovering that the acts of violence on Videodrome may in fact be real, but she's already made up her mind. All the while, Max has been experiencing exceedingly wild hallucinations, prompting him to visit the man responsible for Videodrome as soon as Masha tells him who it is: a man who calls himself Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley). After meeting O'Blivion's daughter Bianca (Sonja Smits), he discovers that Brian has been dead for almost a year and that his daughter has been keeping him "alive" by playing people who wish to see him old videotapes of her father, of which there are thousands. What Max also discovers, as he expected, is that Videodrome is in fact responsible for his recent hallucinations. However, what he never dreamed of was what exactly had been causing them, or what purpose they would eventually serve. To truly enjoy Videodrome in this day and age you must be able to accept that the story takes place in a world without the internet or virtual media like MP3s. You also need to prepare yourself for some strange and often disturbing imagery. Videodrome is the brainchild of controversial writer/director David Cronenberg. Cronenberg is perhaps best known for The Fly and the recent A History of Violence, but he has also helmed such trippy films as eXistenZ and Naked Lunch. Videodrome is definitely one of his trippier films. The concept is very original and very strange, as are the visuals. As Max's hallucinations get worse, the special effects of the film become more intricate and impressive. Most of the effects are make-up and prosthetics that are part of James Woods' body, and they often walk the thin line between horrific and beautiful. Regardless of which side they fall on, though, they are always impressive. Another very memorable and intriguing visual effect involves the screen of Max's television as it grows out into a sort of bubble that Max can touch and interact with. The only part of the film when I honestly didn't think that the effects worked was at the very end when a man's body rips itself apart from the inside. It is still interesting to watch, but also very fake. Perhaps more disturbing than the special effects, though are the scenes in which the characters watch the Videodrome program. Most involve people being tied up and beaten, and they are made more unsettling by appearing on static-filled old television screens. James Woods' performance in this film is very impressive as he manages to keep the audience fully involved in the plot even when it gets a bit confusing or odd. His ability to remain a character that the viewer can connect with even in the most strange, unimaginable situations is impeccable. The rest of the cast is very well-rounded as well, creating the perfect world for Videodrome's curious story to take place in. Story, acting, and visuals aside, the thing about Videodrome that impressed me the most was, in fact, the world that Cronenberg has crafted. In modern society you can find almost any extreme of violence or sex with a few keystrokes in the privacy of your own home thanks to the internet. In my opinion, if the internet never existed, Cronenberg's vision of the near future in Videodrome is probably very much like the world we would be living in. Since there would be no way to search online for videos with horrific or sexual content like we can now, there's a good chance that television would evolve into a more open forum for content of that nature. In this manner, the alternate reality of Videodrome poses a lot of questions that are perhaps more viable today than they may seem at first glance. "What is it people want to see?", "how can we give it to them?", and "what do we do when we've gone too far?"

The Return - At the age of eleven, Joanna Mills (Sarah Michelle Gellar) was in a car accident with her father (Sam Shepard). Ever since that day she has had strange visions that resemble memories, but none of them are hers. She also sometimes harms herself while in deep trances that come out of nowhere. Fifteen years later she is a young woman working for a trucking company. Her work requires her to take trips all across America, but she normally refuses to set foot in Texas where she grew up. When an opportunity to impress a big client near her hometown arises though, she takes the offer and is on her way. The closer she gets to her childhood home, the more frequently and violently her visions begin to occur. Mysteriously drawn to a bar she's never been to before, but which seems very familiar, Joanna meets a man named Terry Stahl (Peter O'Brien) who she has seen in her visions, and decides to ask him some questions. What she soon finds out is that his wife was murdered at about the same time that she and her father were in their car accident. Assuming that this is why she's been having the strange visions, Joanna begins looking into the death of Terry's wife, but what connection does she have to the events that took her life some 15 years ago? In a word, The Return is bad. In another word, it's uninspired, and in yet another, it's boring. Based on the advertising campaign for The Return, I had assumed that it was going to be yet another in the long line of copycat films spawned from The Ring to feature pale, creepy dead people scaring the shit out of attractive blonde girls. As it turns out, The Return is just a slow, pointless film that I nearly forgot about as soon as it ended. I never watched the Buffy The Vampire Slayer television show, but Sarah Michelle Gellar has got to be deserving of better roles than this. As such, I dare anyone to show me proof that she cared in the least about putting in a decent performance in this film. Outside of Gellar, the only significant character in the film is Peter O'Brien's tortured soul Terry Stahl, and he also put in a weak effort to make anyone care about him. No one else in The Return really seemed all that important, so it was up to these two main characters to drive the story, and it felt more like they fell asleep at the wheel. Perhaps it would have helped them out some in entertaining the audience if director Asif Kapadia had at least tried to add something original or interesting to his movie, but alas he seems to have opted not to. It is not Asif's fault though, that the story behind The Return is complete garbage. Not only is it uneventful and boring, but it also manages to be confusing. There was a scene at the end of the film that was obviously supposed to wrap everything up and clue the audience into what was going on the whole time, but it just left me with more questions. Questions that I didn't really care that much about finding out the answers to. There are movies that are bad and then there are movies that should just never have gotten past the scriptwriting stage. The Return is far and away one of the latter.

Virus - The Sea Star, a tugboat under the command of Captain Robert Everton (Donald Sutherland), finds itself caught in a storm at sea. Barely surviving it's wrath, Everton and his hesitant crew stumble upon another ship, seemingly deserted in the wake of the storm. Boarding the ship, which turns out to be a Russian science vessel, the crew of the Sea Star opts to salvage the ship for themselves and collect on the reward money for bringing it in. However, their plan is compromised when they discover a raving woman onboard named Nadia (Joanna Pacula) who claims that she is the ship's only surviving crew member. According to her, the vessel's satellites intercepted an electronic signal from space that took over all of the ship's electronics. In the wake of this event, her crew shut down all of the power. Disregarding her ridiculous claims, Everett orders that the Russian boat's electricity be restored, but as soon as it is, people begin disappearing. Before long, mutilated humans with robotic limbs and weapons welded to their bodies begin attacking the crew of the Sea Star. Slowly losing his mind, Captain Everett confronts the creatures and agrees to help them murder the rest of his people in exchange for a position of power among them. With Everett now against them, Kelly Foster (Jamie Lee Curtis), Steve Baker (William Baldwin), and Richie Mason (Sherman Augustus) team up with Nadia to once again attempt to defeat the creatures, which view humans as a virus that must be terminated. My feelings on Virus are fifty-fifty. On one hand it has a great premise, decent directing, and some truly impressive special effects. On the other hand it has a stereotypical formula, poor writing, and some equally bad special effects. Based on the Dark Horse comic book of the same name, Virus' core concept is refreshingly original. Instead of a monster from space or a demon that takes over people's bodies, we have a bit of a combination of both. The enemy in Virus is a living electronic signal. As such, it possesses electronics, and using human bodies, creates man/machine hybrids which it controls via a hive-mind. In this capacity, there are some pretty neat looking creatures in the movie without it feeling too cliched. Speaking of the creatures, the designs and make-up effects of the cyborg villains are (for the most part) great. They are truly creepy and pleasing to the eye, yet at the same time they can appear fairly clunky in action. It is always obvious when there is an animatronic enemy onscreen as opposed to a person in make-up, which makes some scenes feel more cheesy than others. By the time the majorly CG final enemy, the Goliath, makes his appearance, though, he takes away any hesitations that the viewer may have about the technology utilized in making of the film. For being produced in the mid-nineties, the computer effects in Virus are surprisingly convincing. The filmmakers also did a good job of matching the real props with the CG imagery, especially in, as I said, the final scenes with the Goliath. The acting in Virus is one of it's downfalls as even proven veterans Donald Sutherland and Jamie Lee Curtis seem to be unable to sell the wild story that they are a part of. Particularly horrible is Sherman Augustus, whose character Richie goes insane for no good reason about halfway through the film and begins randomly building things that will come into play during the movie's climax. This is just a poor plot development and a transparent way of wrapping things up at the end of the movie. I wouldn't say that there are any really good instances involving scares in Virus, but it's certainly worth checking out for some of the effects and the original premise. I haven't personally read the comic books off of which this film is based, but after seeing it again, I'd like to pick up some copies and give them a look.

Episode 51 - Masters Of Horror Part 1

The Re-Animator - Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is a slightly unstable, but well-meaning medical student. After being thrown out of the school he'd been attending in Germany he relocates to a med school in the United States where he is under the tutelage of the famous Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale), with whom Herbert doesn't see eye to eye. In need of a roommate, fellow student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) accepts Herbert into his home where he promptly sets up a makeshift laboratory in the basement. When Dan's cat goes missing, his girlfriend (and daughter of the school's Dean Alan Halsey [Robert Sampson]) Megan (Barbara Crampton) discovers it lying dead inside Herbert's refrigerator. Before long, Herbert demonstrates for Dan what got him kicked out of his previous school: an luminescent green serum called "Re-Agent" that can bring the dead back to life. The serum isn't perfect though, as is demonstrated when Herbert injects Dan's dead cat and it returns to life, though is frantic, violent, and stronger than it was previously. Intent on trying his Re-Agent on a human subject, Herbert convinces Dan to help him sneak into the school's morgue where they test it on a cadaver. The resulting rampage by the previously dead body ends with the death of Megan's father, but before they are caught, Herbert and Dan inject him with the Re-Agent, leading everyone to believe that he has simply gone stark-raving mad. Convinced that something is awry, Dr. Hill visits the laboratory of Herbert, offering to let him get away with the murder of Dean Halsey if he hands over his research regarding the Re-Agent. Before the night is out, Herbert must decide what to do about his problem with Dr. Hill and Dan will do whatever it takes to win back Megan, who Dr. Hill is secretly obsessed with. Bear in mind that while that plot synopsis may seem very intricate and revealing, I've left a lot of story points out. The plot of this film rarely slows down to give you a moment to breath and is constantly changing directions. It's nearly impossible to predict where it's going next, which is one of the reasons that it is so great. The Re-Animator is just a flat-out fun movie to watch. The pacing is great, albeit a bit fast, it's funny, it's horrific, it's intriguing, and it has some incredibly memorable moments. First, the story. As you can tell by the plot synopsis above (as well as by the title itself), The Re-Animator is about zombies and the mad scientist who brings them back to life. Dr. Herbert West isn't your stereotypical mad scientist, though. He is a young man who genuinely wants to help people by beating death. He just gets a little too worked up and makes some bad decisions sometimes. Jeffrey Combs is an actor who I've never really noticed before, but he is far and away the perfect person for the role of Herbert. He livens up the entire screen whenever he's on it with some of the best facial expressions and line deliveries in a B movie since Bruce Campbell. Playing the perfect opposite to the over-the-top Herbert West is Bruce Abbott as his roommate Dan Cain. Bruce is another exceptional talent in this film, not necessarily because he's an incredible actor, but because he plays so well off of Jeffrey's performance. He knows he has to play the less entertaining straight man and he just pulls it off wonderfully. In many ways The Re-Animator wouldn't work without a good performance from Dan's character because he's the person in the film who is most like the audience: being pulled along on an insane ride which he wasn't ready for. The third performance in The Re-Animator that really shines is that of David Gale as the evil Dr. Carl Hill. For a good portion of the movie Dr. Hill's character is just an unlikable old fart, but by the time the climax rolls around he has become an absolutely despicable villain that you just want to see get mutilated (and if you feel this way too, you may be in luck). The premise behind The Re-Animator is simple, but taken in some completely unpredictable and ingenuitive directions by writer/director Stuart Gordon. He takes the tired concepts of zombies and nutty scientists and creates one of the most original stories that I've ever seen on film. Match the wild, rollercoaster ride of a story and the spot-on performances with the awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, pre-CG special effects and The Re-Animator is a must see film for anyone who likes to laugh and scream their way through a movie. In my opinion, the only thing holding The Re-Animator back from garnering the mainstream critical acclaim that it deserves is the general public's inability to accept films with over-the-top violence and gore as anything more than throwaway B movies.

The Stuff - When a miner working late one night stumbles upon a pile of white slime slowly seeping from within the Earth, he does what anyone would do in his position. He eats some of it. Finding the ooze particularly delicious, he soon begins pumping it out of the ground in large quantities and marketing it to families in middle America as a new yogurt-esque desert treat called The Stuff. Before long the new taste sensation has gripped the nation and people everywhere are indulging themselves with multiple servings of The Stuff. In fact, so many people are eating it that an ice cream company has hired a private detective by the name of David "Mo" Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) to investigate the product and find out what it is about The Stuff that everyone loves so much. When he arrives at the small town where The Stuff is mined he meets a young boy named Jason (Scott Bloom) who adamantly opposes eating The Stuff after claiming to have seen masses of it moving around of it's own free will. He ran away from home after his family began to act strangely in the wake of eating the product and joins up with Mo in his search for the truth. Together, Mo and Jason learn that The Stuff takes over the mind and body of anyone who eats it and that it has plans to take over the entire human race. Later on they also team up with a former cookie brand spokesman called "Chocolate Chip" Charlie (Garrett Morris) who is out of a job thanks to the popularity of The Stuff, a woman who Mo has the hots for named Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), and Colonel Malcolm Grommet Spears (Paul Sorvino) of the U.S. Army Reserves, in order to stop the reign of terror brought on by the deadly dessert. Every now and then a movie comes along that is so bad that it's good. The Stuff is not one of those movies. The Stuff is so bad that it's just plain bad. However, it does have some redeeming qualities. But first the bad. The acting in The Stuff is atrocious. I dare say that there isn't a single believable, well-delivered line in the entire film. This is not helped by the movie's horrible sound quality. Then there is the story. There are so many problems with the story of The Stuff that while it has a great premise and some wonderful ideas, the plot just can't seem to sustain itself. From scene to scene the story bounces all over the place so many times that it can become confusing, and the story is generally told in such a poor way that it's sometimes hard to stay interested regardless. "What is there to like about The Stuff, then?" you ask? Plenty. First is the concept. At the base of every good science fiction film is a original, interesting premise, and The Stuff is no exception. The idea that this substance takes over peoples bodies is not new or revolutionary, but the little differences between this idea and something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers really make it stand out. The fact that people are exposing themselves to the product of their own will and that before anyone knows that it's dangerous they've already willingly tried it is a great idea. The hopeless nature of the situation is also great. As the sad excuse for a plot rolls on there are these incredibly shocking moments of great intrigue when a person with an active imagination can stop and say "Wait a minute! That's a great idea! I wish they did something better with it!" This by no means makes the movie itself all that much more enjoyable, but it certainly can get you thinking, and that's half of the enjoyment of watching The Stuff. The other half is the special effects. I'd say that about half of the effects in this movie are terrible, but the other half are just the kind of stuff that any self-respecting horror/monster movie lover thrives on. Horribly twisted facial expressions, slime oozing out of people's bodies, mutilated human hosts, and ghastly transformation scenes are all achieved with some pretty impressive make-up effects. The majority of the weaker effects shots are poorly constructed and poorly filmed miniatures, forced perspective shots, and reversed action shots, but every now and then one of them manages to look pretty good. One of my favorite parts of the movie is when a bed has been booby-trapped with The Stuff and it comes pouring out of the mattress, pinning a man against a wall and forcing him up to the ceiling. The shot was obviously achieved by titling the set, but just seeing old-school effects in action is often enough to get me excited when watching a B-grade horror movie. The Stuff is most certainly not for everyone, but if you like movies like The Evil Dead, The Re-Animator, or Brain Dead/Dead Alive, chances are that you'll get something out of this film.

Hellraiser - Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman and later Oliver Smith) is the kind of guy you wouldn't want to run into in a dark alley. He's an ill-tempered jerk who likes to dabble in life's dark taboos. That is how he ended up in possession of a small puzzle box known as the Lament Configuration. When Frank solves the puzzle he is drawn from the attic of his former home into hell where a quartet of disfigured, leather-clad individuals known as the Cenobites proceed to bring him to the heights of pleasure and pain via intricate means of torture. Some time later, Frank's brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) and his new wife Julia (Clare Higgins) decide to move from the city into Larry and Frank's childhood home which the brothers still own. When they arrive they find evidence that Frank had been residing there at some point, but he himself has gone missing. While moving a mattress up the stairs, Larry cuts his hand and ends up dripping some blood on the floor of the attic. After he leaves, Frank begins to rise from beneath the floorboards, awoken by the blood, and starts to rebuild his physical body. Discovering Frank's partially reconstructed form in the attic, Julia, who had a secret affair with him in the past, agrees to bring him more blood so that he may continue to rebuild himself. Over the next few days, Julia begins seducing men, luring them to the attic, and killing them to feed Frank's need for blood. Later, Larry's daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), who he'd had with his previous wife, discovers the puzzle box and accidentally unlocks it, drawing the Cenobites to her. Before they can take her, though, she offers to lead them to Frank, who had escaped them, in exchange for her life. The Cenobites accept, but can Kirsty really trust a pack of demons? For years I had a preconceived notion that Hellraiser was simply another sub-par 80's horror movie. It turns out that I was wrong. With Hellraiser, Clive Barker has not only crafted an entertaining story, but also a completely original take on the concept of hell. It will be difficult to explain my feelings for this concept, but some of Pinhead's (Doug Bradley) lines were very poetic and spoke volumes to me about the way Barker envisioned this film that no plot synopsis could. For example, when Kirsty asks Pinhead who they (the Cenobites) are, he replies, "Explorers in the further regions of experience. Demons to some. Angels to others." Then there is Pinhead's bone-chilling delivery of the line "We have such sights to show you!", which drives itself into your chest like a nail when you hear how disturbingly happy he is while saying it. There were some very interesting ideas and concepts in other areas of the film's plot, but the best moments are by far when the Cenobites confront Kirsty on Earth after she solves the Lament Configuration. Without this scene the movie still has merit, but with it it is on a whole other level. Outside of the Cenobites, Frank is definitely the most interesting and well-portrayed character. In general I was unimpressed with many of the film's other characters, but Frank was a delight to watch because of his performance and his physical appearance. The special effects and make-up people on Hellraiser earned their paychecks well by creating every stage of Frank's "re-birth" in visually gory glory (I wonder if that phrase sounds as dumb as it looks). The most noteworthy effects in the film take place when Frank is first rising from the floorboards. Imagine watching a human body literally melt and fall to pieces, and then imagine watching that happen in reverse. That is essentially what the viewer is treated to in this scene. There are some fairly cheesy effects in Hellraiser (particularly at the end of the film when the Cenobites are being sent back to hell or when the two-headed demon is around), but they are overall pretty good. My biggest complaint with the movie would be that in the middle it gets a bit slow and tedious, but as soon as the Cenobites grace the screen with their presence it becomes a whole new ball game. Don't go into Hellraiser expecting a work of genius, but don't underestimate it the way I did for so long, either.

Children of the Corn - In the small town of Gatlin, Nebraska a young boy named Isaac (John Franklin) and his right hand man Malachai (Courtney Gains) have convinced all of the other children who reside there that there is a being living among the corn fields who requires them to make sacrifices to it. To sate the hunger of "he who walks behind the rows", the brainwashed children murder every single person in the town over the age of eighteen. Meanwhile, Burton "Burt" Stanton (Peter Horton) and his girlfriend Vicky (Linda Hamilton) are on their way to a new life in a new town where Burt has gotten a job as a doctor. While looking at a map, Burt accidentally swerves their car on a back road near Gatlin and hits a child mows down a child. Upon further inspection, the child is dead, but from a lacerated neck, and not from being hit by the car. Burt and Vicky load the boy into their trunk and take off for Gatlin to tell the authorities, however when they arrive they find that the town has been abandoned. Searching a nearby house they discover a young girl named Sarah (Anne Marie McEvoy) who has the ability to draw pictures that tell of future events, but Vicky isn't aware of this when she sees a drawing of herself being attacked in a corn field. Splitting up, Burt searches for help as Vicky is captured by Malachai and some other children and strung up on a cross among the corn. Sarah's brother Job (Robby Kiger) helps Burt hide when he is attacked by some other children and then leads him to where Vicky is being held. Rescuing his girlfriend from some little kids seems pretty easy, but what if there actually is some unseen force that lives among the fields of corn? Children of the Corn has a lot of potential, but sadly comes up short of achieving it. The idea of scary little children has been done to death these days, but Children of the Corn actually has the redeeming quality of not being about demonic children, but just misled ones. I really enjoyed the idea that there's nothing special about these kids aside from their being motivated to do something bad because they don't know any better. Aside from that one good aspect though, this film is a train wreck. First off, finding a movie with a good performance by one child in it is hard enough. This film, on the other hand, has dozens of kids and none of them are particularly good at just about anything in the realm of acting. Malachai is probably the best of the child characters in the movie unless you count Isaac, who was played by an actor with Growth Hormone Deficiency who is in fact much older than he looks. Then again, Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton didn't really do anything for me in this film either. The entire cast was pretty lackluster. Then there's the story. Yes, I like the concept of a bunch of kids who kill people without demonic/alien inspiration, but the plot of Children of the Corn couldn't be more boring. Some people arrive in town, one of them is kidnapped, the other rescues her, etc. The pacing of the film is horrible as well. The beginning is excruciatingly slow while the climax is over in the blink of an eye. Speaking of the climax, I find it hard to believe that the ending of the original Stephen King short story is the same as the ending of the film, because if it is, I don't know how anyone ever convinced a movie studio to finance this project. Then again, maybe no one did finance it because the special effects at the end were so bad that they must not have had much money to work with. The ending is just ludicrous, horribly shot, poorly acted, and so botched in the suspense department that I don't see how anyone could like it. Not that the rest of the film is much better, but it seriously seems as though when the time rolled around to film the climax of Children of the Corn, Fred Kiersch forgot how to direct. When you get right down to it I honestly only liked the most basic premise of the film and that is no reason to like the movie. I implore you to avoid Children of the Corn unless you like your movies bad (and not in a good way).