"Children of the Corn: Genesis" (2011)

I have to confess something.  Ever since the late 80's, I have held a deep dislike for all "direct-to-video" sequels, as most of them feel as if they are nothing more than watered down remakes of the originals, or as is most often the case, have very little to do with the films whose name they bear.  Case in point: the "Children of the Corn" franchise.  After "Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest" (the last of the series to hit theaters), I passed on parts 4 - 8, as well as the 2009 made-for-SyFy remake.

A few years back though, I happened upon a set of all the "Children of the Corn" films on DVD in the $5 bin at Walmart and thought, "Eh, what the hell?"  Figuring someday I might actually sit down and finally watch them, I went ahead and bought the set.  Notice how I said, "a few years back"?  Well, it's taken that long to finally muster up the courage and/or willpower to sit through these (and, I might add, the "Hellraiser" direct-to-video sequels as well, also put out by Dimension, that's been sitting on my shelf next to it's sister series, unopened all this time and collecting dust too).  Parts 4-7 all felt very bland in their execution with their wayward plots, consisting of mostly padded moments to try and make it to the 80 minute feature mark.  I can guarantee that in another five years or so, all of them will be like a vague memory and I'll be lucky to be able to differentiate one from the other.

Which brings me to part 8, the last and most recent of the series, that drops the roman numeral and simply goes by the subtitle, "Genesis".  The only problem is, this is in no way a "prequel" as the title might suggest, but then again, none of the "Corn" sequels seem to follow any kind of continuity or canonized storyline stemming from the first movie.  The basic ingredients to a "Corn" film are simply corn, kids, a possible sickle and maybe the entity known as "He Who Walks Behind the Rows".  That's it.

"Genesis" starts off with yet another couple, Allie (Kelen Coleman) and Tim (Tim Rock) stranded on a remote country highway in what obviously is southern California, but I believe is supposed to be Nebraska.  They decide to see if they can find someone willing to let them use their phone, and happen upon an isolated farmhouse, owned by a man simply called "Preacher" (played by the wild-eyed Billy Drago) and his Russian mail order bride, Helen (Barbara Nedeljakova).  It's apparent Preacher wants nothing to do with this couple on his doorstep...that is until he finds out Allie is pregnant.

Once inside, Preacher tells Allie & Tim they are welcome to stay until morning (when they can get a lift into town to the mechanic's), but warns them not to go places they "ain't invited".  So naturally what's the first thing Allie does?  She wanders off to the barn at night where she hears strange noises and sees what she believes to be a child locked away, then rushes back to tell Tim they need to leave.  Only as they try to leave, an invisible force prevents them from leaving the house, throwing them to the ground.  Is this force being manifested by Preacher, or is it "He Who Walks Behind the Rows"?  Is the boy locked up in the barn Helen's son or "He Who Walks behind the Rows"?  Is Allie's unborn baby connected to all this or is it "He Who Walks Behind the Rows"?  Who knows?  Maybe "He Walks Behind the Rows" knows because I sure couldn't make heads or tails of this muddled mess of a script.

This film to me completely exemplifies everything that is wrong with most direct-to-video sequels.  It tries to throw a connection out to the original film with an opening scene set in the town of Gatlin (which was where the original film and Stephen King's short story took place), but as is usually the case, it has no real relevance to the overall film itself.  The rest of the film could've been a completely original horror film having nothing to do with "Children of the Corn" (and knowing Dimension, it probably was an original script they bought which they doctored up to shoehorn it into the franchise, as they did so often on the "Hellraiser" sequels), and would've been better for it.

If I have any thing positive to say about the film, I'll note that watching Billy Drago be Billy Drago is always fun no matter what the film is.  Here though, he seems much more subdued than his normal frantic self.  Whether it was an attempt to approach this character a little differently or just purely out of boredom with being in these kinds of films, the overall result is pretty effective.  He manages to come off very creepy, especially with those piercing eyes of his, which was enough to keep me guessing as to what his true intentions were?  Once it's revealed though, it elicited a big yawn from me.

Overall, it's an obvious attempt at trying to cash in just one more time on the Stephen King name.  It's amazing to me that his simple 10 page short story could've spawned 9 films (with more to come I'm sure), all of which have about ten pages worth of screenplay material and the rest is always pure padding (including, oddly enough, borrowed action scenes from "Bad Boys II", as was the case with this one).  Let's hope there's a drought of "Corn" films for a while, as after sitting through a marathon of 8 of these, I've had all I can take of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows"!

3 out of 10 for me

* One observation I made was that "Children of the Corn: Genesis" came out on DVD by Dimension at the same time they released "Hellraiser: Revelations", and oddly enough they chose to subtitle both of these films with the first & last books of the Bible.  Is that a coincidence (as neither subtitle has anything to do with either film) or was someone in marketing at Dimension thumbing through the Bible for subtitles?