The punk in the blue bandana tugged on the leash of the dude clad in stitched leather. 

“We call him Terror,” the dude said “He likes fresh meat.”

Terror grimaced at me with razor sharp chompers. The punk in the blue bandana then pulled out a hunting knife, and sliced my left forearm bloody. Terror perked up like a pig sniffing out a truffle, wanting to get a piece of the Curator of Schlock — To be continued. 

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I have a subscription to Shudder. I might as well use it. Oh, look! There’s that new Children of the Corn from director Kurt Wimmer. I can’t figure out if this was a 2020 release or a 2023 release. The Internet is not clear on this fact. I guess the pandemic screwed up this release. This is the eleventh Children of the Corn movie and I realize that’s a lot of catching up to do. But this new Children of the Corn is a reboot so I’m good. No Stephen King attribution in front of the title this time around, but I guess we’ve deviated far from the source material at this point.

The movie begins with a teenage boy emerging from a corn field in Rylstone, Nebraska. A young girl named Eden (Kate Moyer) watches the boy go on a stabbing rampage at an orphanage. He kills the adults, but leaves the children alone. The local sheriff assumes it’s a hostage situation so he pumps a gaseous animal tranquilizer into the orphanage in an effort to subdue the suspect. This has the unfortunate consequence of killing the children in the orphanage. The sheriff laments that he’ll probably lose reelection over this.

Eden gets adopted by the town preacher, Pastor Penny (Bruce Spence), but Eden seems rather indifferent about the whole thing. Eden puts on a red wig because she’s a fan of the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland. Why? Because the Red Queen gets to do what she wants and remake the world. Eden starts holding mock trials for the kids in town, making one boy walk the plank over the death of his dog.

We get introduced to Boleyn (Elena Kampouris), a teenage girl getting ready to leave town to study biochemistry as soon as she graduates. She complains about the herbicides and GMOs the town elders used that are now destroying the corn crop. Boleyn’s dad holds a town hall meeting where everyone votes to destroy the corn fields in exchange for government subsidies. Boleyn challenges her father, saying they need to heal the soil and not abandon the crops, but the townsfolk laugh at her.

Boleyn invites a news reporter to town to do a story on their plight and even arranges a mock trial for her dad. The kids go along with it, but Eden has other plans. Eden and the other children imprison the elders with the plan of feeding them to “He Who Walks.” Gory killings ensue. Pastor Penny gets his eyes removed from his socket by Eden for reasons. A bunch of townsfolk are buried alive where the elders had planned to bury the corn stalks.

I don’t know. Hasn’t Children of the Corn run its course. The novelty of the super judgmental ten year-old stabbing me to death while a plant man runs around in the fields has gotten old. This isn’t the Leprechaun series after all. There’s plenty of meat left on that franchise’s bones. Unless there’s going to be a Children of the Corn in Space, you can count me out.

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Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, and episode 575) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.