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Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice
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| Year: |
1993
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Director: |
David F. Price
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| Stars: |
Terence Knox, Paul Scherrer, Ryan Bollman, Ned Romero, Christie Clark, Rosalind Allen, Ed Grady, Wallace Merck, Marty Terry
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| Genre: |
Horror |
| Rating: |
  3 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
The smalltown of Gatlin is overrun with police and reporters now that the news of how the town's children killed their parents has spread. The surviving children aren't believed to be among those who contributed to the massacre, and are escorted to a town nearby where they can be taken care of. Meanwhile, a reporter with a popular tabloid, John Garrett (Terence Knox), is driving through the area with his son Danny (Paul Scherrer) and arguing all the way because their relationship has always been strained since Garrett left Danny's mother. They realise something is up when they meet a TV crew driving around - this could be the big story Garrett is looking for, but it's bigger than he could have imagined...
Whenever you see a sequel with the word "Final" in the title, you can be pretty sure that there will be more to come, and when the sequel is the second in the series, as it is here, then it's guaranteed. This belated follow up picks up from where the original left off, but with none of its cast returning. Written by A.L. Katz and Gilbert Adler, it closely resembles the typical, cheap horror franchise movies that had been springing up since the eighties, only with the likes of Freddy Kreuger or Michael Myers replaced with a bunch of dour, homicidal kids. Rest assured however, that the pattern is the same: assemble a bunch of characters and kill them in unlikely ways.
Garrett and Danny find a bed and breakfast to stay at, recommended to them by Angela (Rosalind Allen) who has taken in one of the children, a dressed-in-black teenager named Micah (Ryan Bollman). Micah ends up as the ringleader for the remaining children, and begins to slowly make his way through the townsfolk, bumping them off. The first deaths we see, however, are the work of the evil spirit behind the mayhem, "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" from the first film, as the two man television crew are killed by corn in a ridiculous scene which has them leave their van in gale force winds purely so that they can be attacked. We know that there is a supernatural entity out there in the corn because we see things from his point of view, in a Wolfen kind of way.
It's not long before Micah and his unhappy band are making their presence felt, with set piece killings that include a voodoo inspired nosebleed, a doctor stabbed with syringes and, most preposterously of all, a house dropped on a busybody old lady in a Wizard of Oz moment. There's an unpersuasive attempt to introduce Native American mysticism to explain the goings-on, and a useless subplot about mould on the corn harvest bringing about hallucinations and poisonings, too. Add this to a tedious father and son rivalry between Garrett and Danny, who are each offered their own dull romance, and you have a lacklustre movie all round. Children of the Corn II has a reputation of being one of the worst sequels ever, but it's absurdities simply make it indifferent rather than standing out as a bad movie classic. Music by Daniel Licht.
[Anchor Bay's Special Edition DVD includes an audio commentary, trailer and more. It is available as part of a box set of the first three movies.]
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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| David F. Price (1961 - )
American director who made low-budget horror sequel Children of the Corn II and the Sean Young comedy Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. Also worked as an actor, appearing in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. |
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