I’m on a hunt for the scariest movies of all time! I’ll be looking at films of any era, from any country, and then reviewing them based solely on how terrifying they are.

If you have a suggestion for a horror movie, please let me know on Twitter.

Please be advised, spoilers may lie ahead!!

Children of the Corn (2020)

Director: Kurt Wimmer

Starring: Elena Kampouris, Kate Moyer

Let me get something out of the way right from the get-go: this is an awful movie, by far the worst one I’ve watched for this column. It’s more meandering than Pet Sematary Two, more toothless than Demonic Toys.

It will undoubtedly result in an incredibly brief summary of how scary it is, because quite honestly, there isn’t much to grasp onto in 93 torturous minutes that somehow feel much longer — horrific or otherwise.

Based on Stephen King’s short story from 1977, it retreads the central theme of a horde of violent children possessed by a mysterious figure that resides in the corn fields. You might be stunned to learn that this is the eleventh onscreen retelling, without a single one being particularly good.

What you can bet on, surely, would be creepy kids and gratifying kills that come together for a guilty pleasure at best. But alas. A…fucking…las.

Once again, the antagonists remain these eponymous children of the corn variety, who are under the command of the orphan, Eden (Moyer). Eden shows sickening pleasure in playing cruel games, with her behaviour escalating from concerning to murderous over the course of a couple of scenes.

Fundamentally, it’s a dull notion, and the idea of youngins operating to appease their cornfield overlords is too silly to be taken seriously. But we’ve done dull and silly before, and I long for either of those. What we have with this film, is offensively nondescript nothingness, a joyless experience devoid of any personality.

Never in my life have I seen something that is entirely just “shit happening on a screen” such as this. Their rampage claims the lives of the townsfolk who we have only briefly met, and who were established not to be particularly nice in the first place. As they begin burying screaming people in a ditch or hanging them from a noose, you’re left wondering why anything is taking place.

Moyer does a fabulous job as Eden, however there’s no descent, no buildup, and no payoff. Whereas Chekhov’s gun insists that when something of significance is added to a narrative, it better have an eventual purpose, Children of the Corn is content to never introduce it to begin with. The gun, that is (or the narrative for that matter).

What results isn’t just an abject failure of a horror movie, but an abomination of cinema that transcends genre by simply not having any genre whatsoever. There is one well executed jump scare that alludes to the supernatural elements awaiting us, but alas, the vaunted “He Who Walks” corn mastermind somehow makes things even worse when he lumbers into the picture during the final act. It’s… a big viny thing that kind of blurs into its surroundings. Not exactly Stan Wilson-level creature design.

I kept desperately searching for symbolism, or tension, or just anything at all, and instead had to just suffer through one of the most mind-bendingly grating movies I have ever witnessed.

Put plainly, it is an insult to classify this as a horror movie. It has all the presence of a student film, plodding between its limited selection of scenes until it concludes on a baffling note. It would be overly generous to call it a misfire, as it would be more accurate to classify it as a shot that was never taken in the first place.

Perhaps that’s another Chekhov’s gun reference? At least that would be a plot device, unlike what you’ll get from Children of the Corn. Zero paws is becoming crowded territory, yet I assure you, this is the absolute bottom of the barrel.

Final Verdict

Scary kids in a country town isn’t a great premise for sheer dread, but even with that low bar, Children of the Corn somehow manages to flop face first into the dirt. It’s stunningly frightless, and criminally un-fun to at least alleviate the tedium.

I have absolutely no idea how this movie was greenlit. I truly hate it and I wish it had never been made, as its budget would have been better spent on literally anything else. I feel an unshakeable amount of guilt knowing that this was the All-Time Scariest entry that came after The fucking Exorcist, for fuck’s sake.