While Stephen King’s horror novels and short stories had been adapted to film before – in Brian De Palma’s Carrie and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining – from late 1983 there was a unusually enthused spate of such adaptations. From December 1983 to April 1985, audiences were bombarded with the likes of Christine, Cujo, The Dead Zone, Silver Bullet, and Cat’s Eye. In the middle of the pack came Children of the Corn, adapting King’s short story of the same name, which hit American cinemas in March 1984.

Were these films any good? It really depends on one’s taste, and the individual film. In the case of Children of the Corn, directed by Fritz Kiersch, what seems to be a limited budget stunts the film’s appeal. A strong premise – two motorists stumble upon a rural community where the children have murdered all of the adults – is reduced to an awful lot of running in and out of buildings and getting captured by teen religious zealots.

Screenwriter George Goldsmith – whose own script supplanted an earlier draft by King himself – claimed that his adaptation was an metaphor for the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which seems an intriguing idea until one realises the film is therefore depicting Muslims as children. In practice the completed film honestly does not feel complex enough for metaphor.

There is some entertainment value from the film’s cast. Peter Horton, future thirtysomething star, does a reasonable job of playing adult interloper Burt – who stumbles upon the strange religious community. Linda Hamilton, caught here immediately pre-Terminator, plays his partner Vicky. While she does typically good work with what she has been given, it is a shame seeing an actor known for such a powerful and driven female roles consigned to playing the victim more often than not. The character and actor deserve better.

Among the juvenile cast Courtney Gains manages to spin a genuinely threatening antagonist out of the brooding, violent Malachai. Meanwhile the central villain and cult leader Isaac is played by 24-year-old John Franklin. His exaggerated performance and distinctive features make him a paradoxical delight: both absurd and hugely entertaining. More than any other element of the film Isaac infuses Children of the Corn with cult appeal. It is objectively terrible stuff, but for the right viewer manages to be hugely entertaining.

The cult appeal is evident in the sheer number of largely unrelated sequels and remakes that Children of the Corn has generated. Starting with 1992’s Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice, they have intermittently emerged for decades – most recently in the 2020 remake directed by Kurt Wimmer.

Any viewer seeking a provocative thriller about children collectively murdering their parents is honestly spoiled for choice, and almost all of them are probably better ones than this. My personal pick for the strongest example is 1976 horror film Who Can Kill a Child from Spanish filmmaker Narciso Ibáñez Serrador. It is genuinely frightening stuff, rather than the camp nonsense offered up here.