Looks like the children have left the corn and made way for the clowns.
By: Amanda Musto
The folks over at Shudder decided to take a stab at a cornfield slasher and unfortunately, this film felt like a slow death.
As a horror movie lover and avid watcher, I’m always seated in a theater for opening weekend of a new horror release, and this time was no different except that I went into it with low expectations. Due to this being a Shudder film, which can be a hit or miss type of movie, I didn’t expect to be blown away. Spoiler alert — I was right.
The concept of death and killers in a cornfield is nothing new, with memorable moments in films such as Jeepers Creepers II or Rob Zombie’s Halloween II. However, there is one standout film that usually comes to mind first for many horror fans and movie watchers alike — the cult classic, Children of the Corn. While all these films have left an impact in the horror universe, this one most likely will not.
While it seemed the production team tried to give this film a slasher vibe, it lacked the oomph needed to make it stand out, which made it hard for me to categorize it as a slasher. I barely want to call it horror with how little scare factor it had. They did manage to incorporate some slasher aspects: a masked killer(s), a final girl, the killings happening one by one, but that was pretty much it. There were minimal jump scares, not much suspense, and the gore was lackluster at best. If a head is getting cut off, I expect to see blood splattering all over, not just a little splash on the killer’s face.
Along with the lack of anything to make me jump out of my seat or make my skin crawl, it had a very generic story line — a young girl and her dad move to a small town after her mom dies, she makes friends faster than the average teenager, and then terror ensues. I will give credit when due, the kills that they chose for many of the characters were creative, insert cattle prod here, but that’s basically the extent of my positive notes. There were two major plot twists in the film that tied in together, and while one was pretty interesting and added a wild backstory, the other was just meh. My friend who attended the movie with me also guessed the main one early on, so if you’re someone who can figure out plot twists quickly, you’ll see this one coming a mile away.
All in all, the film wasn’t much to write home about and has been added to my list of one and done horror movie watches. It wasn’t the worst, but I only give it 3 out of 5 stars.
