ChildrenoftheCorn6

Children of the Corn 666 Isaac’s Return (1999)

A young lady named Hannah is returning to the home of her birth mother in search of who she really is. We know this because of the voice over at the beginning of the movie where she is reading a letter to her adoptive mother. Of course Gatlin is home to the children who worship he who walks behind the rows. Hannah is part of a prophecy that involves a new race being born with her as the mother of it. When she gets into Gatlin our old friend Isaac awakens from a 19 year coma to set things into motion.

I know I keep saying this as I review these Children of the Corn sequels, but I never knew they made as many of these things as they did. Of the ones that I’ve seen so far this might be the worst. Not only does it start off with a voiceover (the tool for a lazy writer) but the story isn’t that interesting with a girl returning to the town of Gatlin to fulfill a prophecy. Ignoring pretty much every other sequel (I hate it when they do that) they jump into a story that just doesn’t work at all. I found it difficult to follow what was happening. This is partly due to a narrative that has the main character of Hannah jumping from scene to scene without any explanation of why she is doing any of it other then she is trying to find out who she is. One minute she is sleeping in the hotel then she is at the hospital. Again we have a sequence where she is leaving town, but why? She finally finds her mom and then wants to leave without talking to her! I think that there must have been some editing mistakes here because the whole movie has a “choppy” feeling where the scenes just don’t seem to mesh together well.

Oh since I mentioned the word choppy I want to talk about the behind the scenes stuff. Normally I start off with a discussion of the special effects, but here I want to lead off with the camera work. I don’t know if the director, Kari Skogland, was trying to be creative or “cool” but I hate the way the movie is shot. For example when the characters are talking instead of cutting back and forth between close-ups the camera keeps swinging between them. I was starting to get sick to my stomach it was getting so bad. Now the good news is that someone must have said something in the dailies because at some point this does stop. But what doesn’t stop is how hard the action sequences are to follow. They are shot so dark that it is almost impossible to follow what is happening. It is like seeing shadows bounce across the screen yelling at each other. Now I’m going to talk about the special effects. There really isn’t any. You get one machete to the noggin’ that is barely anything and Stacy Keach twitching as he is electrocuted. Everything else happens off screen or is only hinted at.

This is an absolutely dreadful movie and is the worst entry into the Children of the Corn franchise (so far I have more to watch…). I can’t imagine anyone needing to add this one to their collection, but if you do the good news it can be had cheap from Echo Bridge Home Entertainment. Check out their website at here.

½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer