“Children of the Corn” in Review: A Review of “Children of the Corn”

Hi. I’m Dave Hill, film expert and dude who is pretty fucking sweet in general. Recently, the editors at VICE asked me to offer my insights, criticism, and other stuff most people can’t even handle on some of today’s most popular motion pictures. Naturally, I told them to go fuck themselves. For starters, to even begin to understand modern film, one must first have a grasp of the classics. Also, sometimes it takes me a long time to finally get around to seeing a given movie, so talking about anything that just came out can be a tricky thing for me. All of that being said, I would now like to share with you my thoughts on what I am pretty sure is basically one of the greatest movies of all-time, and I am right about everything.

Last night, I watched the hit movie Children of the Corn starring Linda Hamilton in the role of a lifetime and also Peter Horton, whom you no doubt remember from the popular television series thirtysomething, a show we still talk about to this day. As hinted at in the title, Children of the Corn is a movie about a bunch of kids who are so into corn. It’s actually kind of weird. Also, they are basically total dicks to pretty much every adult they encounter: They poison their coffee, slit their throats, and even kill this one crazy old guy’s dog just for the lulz. It’s nuts. For whatever reason, no one sees any of this coming, even though these kids are seriously crazy-looking. From the second I laid eyes on them, I was all like, “I’m pretty sure those kids are about to kill everybody and probably even a dog too while they’re at it” to everyone I was watching the movie with even though everyone kept telling me to shut up because I was “ruining the movie” and also “smelled like Cool Ranch Doritos” or whatever.

The movie basically starts when Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton decide to take a road trip because it’s his birthday or something; I can’t remember. As they drive along, Peter Horton pretty much stares straight ahead in that way that one does when he’s pretty sure he’s about to bang Linda Hamilton, who was also on Chuck a bunch of times. As for Linda Hamilton, she just kind of sits there in the passenger seat looking like a superfox only not in the way where she totally knows it and it’s kind of annoying, but more in that way where she’s pretty much just going about her day seemingly not even aware that she’s a total superfox, which, of course, only enhances her overall bangability, which, in turn, is awesome. Anyway, while Peter and Linda are driving along minding their own business, some kid wanders into the road and Peter Hamilton just drives right into him like he just doesn’t give a fuck or something. Usually when you drive right into some goddamn kid with your car you check on the kid first, but instead Peter Horton checks to make sure Linda Hamilton is OK for, like, 10 minutes before he finally gets around to scraping the dead kid off the road, dumping him in the trunk, and driving off as one would. It’s kind of impressive how not freaked out Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton are about the fact that there is some dead kid in their trunk, but I tend to attribute that to their professionalism as actors. Most people probably would have been all like “Holy fuck, we got a dead kid in the trunk,” but Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton just powered through that shit like that kind of shit happened to them all the time.

After driving off with a dead kid in their trunk, Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton decide to stop off in the next town where—surprise, surprise—every adult is dead and those crazy-ass kids make being basically out of their fucking minds a full-time job. (Yeah, right, like none of them would have gotten grounded by now.) This one kid Isaac in the movie who—aside from being the best-dressed of the bunch—is also the craziest of the bunch, so, of course, all the other kids just can’t wait to do whatever crazy ass shit he tells them to. (Also, it should be noted that basically every kid in the movie has a name like Malachai or Job or something else that would have gotten his ass kicked in any other movie.) And I guess we all saw this coming, but it’s at this point when that sick fuck Isaac is all like, “Hey, everybody, let’s kill Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton, whom you no doubt remember from the hit TV series thirtysomething.” Then, sure enough, those dickhead kids spend the rest of the movie trying to kill Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton, two attractive people who totally didn’t deserve it (especially Linda Hamilton, who is smoking).

At one point, the kids even string Linda Hamilton up on a cross made up of—what else?—corn, but at that point in the movie she has basically had it and is all like, “Fine, I guess go ahead and crucify me on some corn. See what I care.” Not to be outdone, Peter Horton eventually shows up and kicks all the kids asses. Normally, it’s not cool to go beating the crap out of children, but when you see this movie you will totally think that Peter Horton would have been well within his rights to call up the entire cast of thirtysomething and ask them to come help him kick the shit out of these little pricks. I swear these kids were total dicks. I was watching this movie and was just like, don’t even.

This is a spoiler alert or something, but by the end of the movie, Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton finally escape those asshole kids and decide to get the hell out of there because it’s, like, enough already. As a sort of token of their crazy day together, they take the two most adorable and least crazy little kids with them in the end and the kids seem pretty pumped about it because, yeah, right, like you wouldn’t want to be adopted by Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton. That shit would rule. Anyway, so in the end, the four of them just walk off, happy to start a life together in which the odds of a corn-worshipping gang of fucking nutjob kids trying to slit their throats at any point aren’t very good at all. Personally, I don’t think it would have killed Linda Hamilton to maybe take her top off or something to give the movie a stronger finish but whatever, thanks for nothing, Linda. Also, in case you are wondering, they never do end up taking the dead kid out of the trunk of their car, which is kind of fucked, but, to be honest, I don’t think I would have either because that shit had to stink pretty bad by that point in the movie.

Run, don’t walk, to see this movie.

Dave Hill is a poet laureate and dude who has made out with a lot of chicks. His first book, Tasteful Nudes (St. Martin's Press), is out now. Buy it here.

@mrdavehill