After three years, the Children Of The Corn reboot has a trailer
The 11th Children Of The Corn movie has “almost nothing to do” with the original Stephen King short story.
As expected as the next Harvest Moon, another Children Of The Corn remake is on its way. Filmed at the onset of the pandemic, Kurt Wimmer’s Children Of The Corn sat quietly on the shelf for the last three years hoping someone would hear its cries of “Outlander!” Now slated for a March release, Children Of The Corn has a whole trailer, giving us a look at this Texas Chain Saw Massacre-inspired take on Stephen King’s short story.
Even mentioning Stephen King here feels a little dishonest. As producer Marc Foster put it, this version has “almost nothing to do with the original story.” Writer-director Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, Ultraviolet) “went back to the story and free-associated from there,” Foster told Variety back in 2020 when production began. 2023’s Children Of The Corn went into production in Australia in May 2020, forcing the shoot to take “hundreds of measures” to keep people from catching the then-novel coronavirus.
This Corn has some critical differences from the other 10 remakes and sequels. Primarily, another child, not an adult, is challenging their dogmatic friends. Here’s the synopsis:
Possessed by a spirit in a dying cornfield, a twelve-year-old girl in Nebraska recruits the other children in her small town to go on a bloody rampage and kill all the adults and anyone else who opposes her. A bright high schooler who won’t go along with the plan is the town’s only hope of survival.
The other significant change here is that Issac is out. Wimmer moved the action from Gatlin, Nebraska, to Rylstone, where a new zealot, Eden Edwards (Station Eleven’s Kate Moyer), is the vessel for “He Who Walks Behind The Rows,” the unseen corn monster that haunts the fields and drives these kids to kill their parents. Unseen but not mute. By the sounds of this trailer, “He Who Walks Behind The Row” might finally be “He Who Walks In Front Of The Camera.” And, hey, Bruce Spence is in this one!
2023’s Children Of The Corn resembles Netflix’s latest Texas Chainsaw Massacre legacy sequel, relying on the amber glow of magic hour and the corn-inspired color pallette to give this some heft. But, like Texas Chainsaw, it’s hard for anyone other than completists or sleepover attendees to get excited for another trip to the cornfield. Although, maybe that viral “Corn Kid” can give it a little bump.
Children Of The Corn opens in theaters on March 3 and heads to streaming on March 21.