So the Sci-Fi Channel (I refuse to refer to them as SyFy because that's just plain stupid) aired a remake of "Children of the Corn", a mediocre Stephen King story from his "Night Shift" collection.
King's short story isn't the best of that collection, nor is it the worst. It does pack enough of a punch and contains King's great penchant for developed characters and visceral images.
The 1984 big screen adaptation just got a 25th Anniversary Blu Ray release, which is kind of funny for a film that was/is a big cheesy pile of crap that took the title, some characters and some "events" from King's story and fashioned something "new" (cliched). It proved the old adage that a short story doesn't have enough meat on its bones for a full length feature by going off in several different directions.
But the film developed enough of a cult following to spawn more sequels than it deserved almost a decade after the fact. The sequels had barely any connections to the original film let alone the original short story, but they obviously made some money since there's still the threat of another one looming over us all.
Stephen King had written a script for the 1984 film that was rejected by the producers at the time. The new TV version is apparently credited to both King and director Donald P. Borchers (who is also one of the producers of the 1984 film). Now, I don't know how much of this is really King (obviously he either worked on it or decided not to contest the credit), but the film is a very faithful adaptation of King's short story. Of course, that aspect now highlights both the deficiencies of King's story being made into a feature and Borchers' directing ability.
In regards to the former, we are presented with Vicky & Burt (on their way to California in the 1970s to help their marriage) who spend about 45 minutes yelling at each other after they accidentally run over a dead child. When they arrive at the next town to report the accident, they discover a strange cult of children who worship a god known as "He Who Walks Behind The Rows". We then get 30 minutes of Burt being chased through the corn fields and then 15 minutes of a silly ending complete with Vietnam flashback and gratuitous sex scene (between minors) before we reach the end of the story as King wrote it.
Any real scares are robbed of their power as Borchers shows his hand seconds before he should. The biggest "creep" factor of King's story is that you never see the kids until Vicky & Burt get to the town and even then we don't see them until Burt does some exploring and figures out that there's something odd. Here, as in the 1984 film, we see the kids right from the beginning and I think it does deflate the concept of doing a "faithful" adaptation of King's story.
This new film has also gotten a release on DVD in an uncut version with several extras. I may revisit this at some point later in life if I get bored and can find it really cheap (like $5), but for now I'm good with having seen this on Sci-Fi where the commercial interruptions kept me from leaping up and throwing a brick at my TV. This was a noble effort, but a completely missed and wasted opportunity.
The nice thing is that I'm sure this won't be the last word on this "franchise".
Be seeing you.
