Children of the Corn

Year of Release:  1984
Director:  Fritz Kiersch
Screenplay:  George Goldsmith, based on the short story Children of the Corn by Stephen King
Starring:  Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R. G. Armstrong, John Franklin, Courtney Gains, Robby Kiger, Anne Marie McEvoy
Running Time:  92 minutes
Genre:  Horror

Young married couple Vicky (Hamilton) and Burt (Horton) travel through rural Nebraska on their way to Seattle.  On the road they run over a young boy, but Burt discovers that he was already dead, having had his throat cut.  Searching for help, they wind up in the small town of Gatlin.  Gatlin appears strangely deserted, but they soon discover that it is not so deserted.  The town is inhabited entirely by children, who are members of a bloodthirsty cult headed by child preacher Isaac (Franklin) and his vicious enforcer Malachi (Gains).  Three years previously, Isaac and Malachi lead the children of the town in the ritual murder of everyone in town over the age of 19.  The cult worships a demonic entity known as "He Who Walks Behind the Rows", who lives in the vast cornfields, and periodically demands human sacrifice.

Based on a 1977 short story by Stephen King, the film has an arresting premise, but ends up as a slightly frustrating mix of very good and very bad.  On the good side, the film starts off very strongly, with an effective opening as the children slaughter their parents and other adults, and some genuinely atmospheric passages early on, depicting the derelict, deserted town, and a sequence where Burt and Vicky try to head to a neighbouring town, but seem to be caught in a kind of loop, unable to escape Gatlin.  A major point in the film's favour is Linda Hamilton who really shines despite not being given nearly enough to do, and R. G. Armstrong is pretty fun as the creepy old mechanic.  On the bad side some of the performances are pretty bad and suffers the film from the limitations of an obviously tiny budget.  The climax is also pretty ludicrous.  While it may not be a "good" movie in the technical sense, it is a lot of fun, and packs in enough gore and creepy moments to appeal to horror fans.  The main problem is that while the film is enjoyable, it's really frustrating that it isn't better than it is, and it feels like a missed opportunity.  It has become something of a cult movie, spawning numerous sequels and a made for TV remake.     

  

Courtney Gains in Children of the Corn

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Year of Release:  1991
Director:  James Cameron
Screenplay:  James Cameron and William Wisher
Starring:  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick
Running Time:  137 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, action,

In the year 2029, a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles is a battlefield in an ongoing war between a small group of human resistance fighters and the machines controlled by the vast computer system known as Skynet.  In a last ditch attempt to destroy the resistance, Skynet sends a liquid metal, shapeshifting T-1000 Terminator (Patrick) back in time to the 1990s  to kill the ten year old John Connor (Furlong), who would grow up lead the resistance.  The resistance, however, is able to send a reprogrammed older model T-800 Terminator (Schwarzenegger) back in time to act as the young Connor's protector.  John, the T-800 and John's mother Sarah (Hamilton) - the target of a failed assassination attempt ten years earlier - are forced into a desperate struggle to survive, and possibly save the future.

Whereas The Terminator (1984) was a modestly budgeted science-fiction chase movie, everything here is bigger including the action, the budget, the length and Schwarzenegger himself who, alongside director James Cameron, really broke through to the action "A" list with The Terminator.  Terminator 2 was groundbreaking in it's day for it's visual effects, particularly it's use of CGI which was really still in it's infancy in 1991, it was also the most expensive movie ever made up to that time (although Cameron himself has broken that record several times since).  It broke box-office records and remains one of the most iconic films of the 1990s.  Although, of course, bigger doesn't necessarily mean better, but this really does improve upon the original, building on and expanding the world and the themes of the first.  The tone of the film is surprisingly downbeat and bleak, with the characters not being particularly likable most of the time, although when your chased by an unkillable, shapeshifting robot that exists solely to kill you, and you know for a fact that the world is about to be annihilated in a couple of years, you could probably be forgiven for having a case of the grumpys.  The performances are good, with Schwarzenegger delivering one of his most memorable appearances.  Schwarzenegger is an actor of limited range, but he knows what those limitations are and he plays to his strengths, and what he does well, he does better than anyone.  Linda Hamilton gives an intense performance as the traumatised Sarah Connor, a world away from the cute, fluffy waitress from the beginning  of the first film, she's almost a human Terminator here.  Edward Furlong made his acting debut as the ten year old John Connor and turns in a fine performance.  The action is spectacular, and the special effects, surprisingly, have aged very well and still hold up today.  Full of memorable moments, this is one of the best movies of the 1990s.

He'll be back:  Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgement Day