X
- 1993
- R
- Dimension Films
- 1 h 32 m
- 1993
- R
- Dimension Films
- 1 h 32 m
Summary A journalist and his son travel to Nebraska to investigate the mysterious town of Gaitlin where, unbeknownst to them, a murderous cult of children are waiting in the corn fields.
Directed By: David Price
Written By: A L Katz, Gilbert Adler, Stephen King
- 1993
- R
- Dimension Films
- 1 h 32 m
- 1993
- R
- Dimension Films
- 1 h 32 m
Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice
18
4.3
Where to Watch
Summary A journalist and his son travel to Nebraska to investigate the mysterious town of Gaitlin where, unbeknownst to them, a murderous cult of children are waiting in the corn fields.
Directed By: David Price
Written By: A L Katz, Gilbert Adler, Stephen King
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Overwhelming Dislike
Based on 5 Critic Reviews
18
0% Positive
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
40% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
60% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
Metascore
Overwhelming Dislike
Based on 5 Critic Reviews
18
0% Positive
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
40% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
60% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
Coming nine years after the original, this supernatural horror sequel is a competently made but uninspired effort. Gore fans should dig it.
Calling CHILDREN OF THE CORN II a better film than its predecessor is something like damning with faint praise, but this sequel manages to be somewhat less ludicrous and occasionally a little more chilling than the first film.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 User Ratings
4.3
25% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
25% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
50% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 User Ratings
4.3
25% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
25% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
50% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
Really ambitious for a dumb '90s horror sequel. Perhaps a little too ambitious for its own good. Its attempts at family drama, giving an explanation for "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," establishing continuity with the first film, and providing intelligent commentary on religion all feel half-baked. Coming off as underdeveloped as the characters they tried (and failed) so hard to give depth. For a movie with so much plot it weirdly feels like it has very little.
As a cheesy story about an estranged (and pretty obnoxious) father and son duo who go to a small town, see some strange crap, and walk away with the two hottest women it succeeds marvelously. Mostly because the kills are so ridiculous.
A woman gets smashed under a house in an obvious Wizard of Oz reference, an old lady gets launched through a window by a semi truck, and a cornstalk manages to magically fly though a windshield and impale a guy in his throat. The whole thing plays out much more like a goofy, Friday the 13th style slasher flick than its predecessor did. Some of the humor is even intentional.
While nowhere near as serious as I think it believes itself to be, The Final Sacrifice is still a lot of dumb fun. Also kudos Ryan Bollman. Some might say he was overacting or whatever, but I thought he was downright incredible. The perfect Isaac replacement.
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Looked pretty messy in places. The picture looked average at best. I didn't like the 4:3 frame. It was bad sound. It lacked bass. It was all top-heavy and sounded bad because of this. The old lady is the worst actress ever! The acting is substandard at best. There really was no story to speak of. It didn't offer anything new except the children taking another town and some pointless and mis-fitting native-American explanation. Bad film in every sense. It didn't even have any charm to make it fun.
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It must be said that, stuck with a script full of plot holes, director David Price doesn't flinch. Both he and his key actors are clearly up to better material than Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice.
It's all incredibly stupid, right down to the predictable romantic entanglements of father and son with the only two women not committed to He Who ... well, you know. Lacking even the cheapest of thrills, this "Corn" is down to its last cob.
Despite a great 15-second, computer-generated effects scene, Corn II manages to be 90-odd minutes of unrelenting cheese. Like runny Brie with blood all over it, it just makes you want to gag.
A sequel to a good movie can be bad... a sequel to a movie that tend not to be that good are more likely to be a disaster. And that is what we have here. This film begins where the predecessor ended: the Gatlin massacre is discovered and takes on public outlines, with authorities investigating.
Honestly, I don't feel like summarizing the script because it's really poor, it just looks like a skeleton, on top of the original film, which serves as the basis for bad horror scenes, quite boring and apparently more designed for TV than for the big screen. Everything is happening in another city, where the surviving children of Gatlin are welcomed and will begin to replicate the events of their hometown, rebuilding their diabolic sect and restarting the mass murders. And as in the first film, the solution will come from those who oppose the cult, and from the son of a journalist who is investigating Gatlin, and who does not have the best relationship with his own father (cliché). The film has a bad script, poorly written and with lots of loose ends, like that idea of toxic mold in corn, which hangs and loosens in the middle of the plot, without resulting in anything or having a conclusive outcome.
The cast is bad and has some characters strange to the scope of the film and who seem to have been fitted into the plot by hammering. It is the case of the American Indian, full of environmental concerns, that will help the heroes by dying miserably in a heroic sacrifice. The children's cast is uninteresting, but adults are no better, and the film makes up for the dramatic bad work with good looks for the generous cleavage of Christie Clark, which is still quite hot at this time. Paul Scherrer is not convincing and just does what he has to do and Ryan Bollman looks like a spoiled teenager with serious assertion problems and not a credible lethal threat.
Compared to the first film, the technical aspects undergo an evolution that, even so, does not compensate for the dramatic poverty and the decadent script, nor make this film worthy of our attention. The cinematography looks very televised, but it takes advantage of the bloodiest scenes in the film... which is much more bloody and visually shocking than the original. There is a lot of blood, some deaths are really violent, and we have several scenes of decaying corpses, which the improved special effects were able to make quite realistic. However, even here there are flaws and the final scenes, where we see the diabolical monster, are worthy of our laughter or, at the very least, an ironic smile.
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I loved the first film. It's a cult classic. But like me, if anyone else loved the original film, it may take you a while to realise how absolutely dreadful this pointless sequel is. It has a nonsensical plot, no characters, dreadful acting, dreadful music, dreadful script, no scary moments. It is an abomination.
The film involves the town of Gatlin being discovered, the children rescued and fostered by the adults of neighbouring town Hemingford. Then somehow, He Who Walks Behind The Rows possesses Micah - this sequel's terminally constipated-looking excuse for Isaac - and the children begin their cult again.
COTC II is just plain offensive. The plot shares less in common with Stephen King than it does with a particularly violent episode of Home and Away. Lead actor Terence Knox doesn't seem to be concentrating on his acting skills, and seems to be directing every ounce of his attention to not moving a single facial muscle in his skull. Paul Scherrer on the other hand simply looks like he's on a special day out.
Where the first film brilliantly explores the isolation of the victims from the rest of the world, its first sequel offers nothing more than a clueless slasher movie, with the soap opera moments hastily strung together by too-stupid-to-be-funny death sequences involving ridiculous characters that deserve everything they get.
One can easily understand why Stephen King does everything in his power nowadays to disassociate himself with the Children of the Corn franchise. If this first offering is anything to go by, God only knows the stream of grime that followed in the other five sequels.
You can actually simulate watching this film at no expense by sitting in front of a blank TV screen and repeatedly poking a finger in each eye for an hour and a half.
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Production Company
Fifth Avenue Entertainment,
Stone Stanley Productions,
Corn Cobb Productions,
Dimension Films,
Trans Atlantic Entertainment
Release Date Jan 29, 1993
Duration 1 h 32 m
Rating R
Tagline These children are home alone too. But their parents are never coming back.
Awards
Fantasporto
• 1 Nomination
Young Artist Awards
• 1 Nomination
