Awaiting the 83rd Academy Awards/Children of the Corn

The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011.  Televised on ABC, the award ceremony will be held at the Kodak Theatre.  I am patiently waiting for the nominees to be announced, which won't be until Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 5:30AM at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.  From January 25th until February 27th, I will be watching and reviewing ever nominated film in my blog.  Of course I will let you know the nominees once I find out and will be giving you my opinion on who should win and who probably will win.  Leave comments and let me know your opinion too.

 I've recently watched both versions of Stephen King's Children of the Corn.  I usually don't care for remakes, but I've learned its easier to get permission to rewrite someone's idea than it is to think you've written an original piece only to be sued by someone who insisted they wrote it first.  I always expect remakes, however, to be completely different from the original.  Children of the Corn was no exception.  Neither was very good.  The original Children of the Corn was made in 1984 and starred Linda Hamilton, most famous for her role in the Terminator movies.  The remake was a made for TV movie.  Released in 2009, it apparently follows the short story by Stephen King better than its predecessor does.  I haven't read the book yet so I can't comment further on that.  One thing I know for   sure though, the remake was far more disturbing.  The movie starts with a cute little boy preaching to children about having to kill their parents, not as creepy as the beginning of the original where the children just randomly show up to a diner and start slaughtering all the adults.  They were led by a creepier looking child who was actually 25 when the movie was made and went on to other creepy roles as Cousin It in the Addam's Family and the voice of Chucky from the Child's Play movies.  That was pretty much the only scary part of the movie.  And of course the main adults survived.  John Franklin's Growth Hormone Deficiency actually helps him to play a more believable Isaac than 99s remake Preston Bailey.  He's just too adorable to be an evil preacher boy.  Maybe they should have brought Franklin back for this role.  Side note: The original Malachi (Courtney Gains) played the sheriff in Sweet Home Alabama.  Anyway, one major difference was the bickering married couple.  The couple in the original weren't married and Hamilton's character Vicki kind of hinted towards a proposal in the beginning.  What was interesting was that the couple in the remake was biracial, even though it was the 70s and biracial couples weren't very common.  They were also very annoying, constantly bickering at each other causing viewers to wonder why they were even together or how they got together in the first place.  In my experience with horror movies I've noticed the director usually makes the viewer relate with the main character or feel bad for them so that you don't want them to die, but I found myself so annoyed by this couple (mostly the woman) that I was routing for the kids.  I was happy in the end when they both were sacrificed for He Who Walks Behind the Rows, apparently that's how the King's story ends too.

I'm going to talk mostly about the remake now because it was so disturbing, and I have no idea what people were smoking when they not only let this movie air on television, but funded it to be made at all.  Something that bothered me were the young girls that walked around pregnant.  I guess this is pretty common in today's society with teenage pregnancy on the rise, but maybe Ruth should have been played by someone that didn't use to be on Nickelodeon's show Zoey 101.  I don't care that she's 18 and considered an adult, she'll still be Zoey's sweet and innocent 13 year old friend to me.  Of course none of this is as disturbing as the child sex scene.  It made me want to vomit.  It starts out with Isaac saying "Now is the time for harvest".  Well little did I know that harvesting equals child pornography.  All of a sudden these two children get on the altar and start having sex.  Full on nudity.  There were boobs and moaning involved.  To make matters worst, younger children got in a circle to watch and cheer.  It's disturbing to even talk about it.  I'm still doing research to figure out exactly how young these two actors engaging in sex are.  I read on another blog that the girl is still not 18, so she was definitely too young to do that scene.  As for the male procreater, well I found his facebook, but none of his websites state his age, but I'm attracted to him so he's probably young.  So that part pretty much turned me off the movie.  Call me a party pooper, but I'm not a huge fan of child pornography even if it was adults playing children.  Stephen King is a very talented author, I don't know why he let them associate that scene with his name.

In conclusion, if you want to watch Children of the Corn, I recommend only the first one from 1984.  Unless you're a wierdo that likes disturbing things then feel free to watch the remake because it is totally different from the original and based more on the short story, but the acting is terrible.  No surprise there.  If you like disturbing movies like Clockwork Orange, then you might like Children of the Corn.  Don't let me stop you, but you have been warned.  Ironically enough I'm now going to watch Children of the Corn 3: Urban Harvest made in 1995.  I couldn't find Children of the Corn 2:  The Final Sacrifice anywhere.  I don't think it made it onto DVD.  I figured I'd give all the corn children a chance because so many movies were made, and I can't just watch one movie in a series.

Continuing with the suspense theme, my next review will be 2009s The Fourth Kind.  I've heard its really scary so I can't wait to watch it.

Thanks for reading!