No other author in recent memory has had as much consistent success selling books as Stephen King. For roughly three decades the Maine writer churned out book after book, each one selling more and more copies. He's a world unto himself, the lucky fellow! He's so successful that he could throw out his pens, put away his typewriters, bury his word processor six feet under, never write another word in his life, and STILL have enough money to wallpaper the Great Wall of China five times over. In many respects, it's Stephen King's world and the rest of us are just living in it. But, and this is a gigantic but, an enormous number of metaphysically bad films based on his novels threaten to put a serious dent in his legacy. We all know the good ones, the ones that not only scared audiences stiff but also helped propel King's career to even greater heights. "Carrie" is probably the best example, followed by "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Dead Zone." These are wonderful, magical films that one can watch again and again without wearying of them. Then there are the rest: the truly wretched refuse that reminds one of dental plaque or the junk that washes up on the shores of a filthy river. Welcome to the Children of the Corn franchise.
"Children of the Corn 3: Urban Harvest" moves far beyond the parameters established in the first film. Instead of Isaac issuing the doom and gloom prophecies of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," we now have Eli (Daniel Cerny) stepping up to the plate. He and his older "brother" Joshua (Ron Melendez) turn up in Chicago after Joshua's father, who had the temerity to question Eli's increasingly bizarre behavior, perished in a hideous manner back on the Nebraska farm. Adopted by William Porter (Jim Metzler)--a big shot at an agricultural firm specializing in the creation of resistant grains--and his wife Amanda (Nancy Lee Grahn), Eli and Joshua seem like fish out of water in the Windy City. Right from the start it's obvious that Eli is a little strange; it is also obvious that he has some sort of weird hold over Joshua. How odd is the pint-sized preacher? His new mother opens his suitcase only to find it packed full of ears of corn covered in huge bugs. Screeching like a banshee, Alice is astonished to discover that the insects were just a hallucination of some sort. Hmmm. Anyway, Eli soon realizes that a huge, abandoned warehouse right next door to the house provides fertile ground for a few rows of special corn. This crop grows to full height in a matter of hours, is impervious to disease and other forms of damage, and tastes great.
William Porter soon learns about the crop and dreams about how much money he can make selling these plants around the world, an idea encouraged by Eli. In the meantime, the two kids enroll in a Catholic school run by the kindly Father Frank Nolan (Michael Ensign). Eli continues to try and control Joshua, but his influence seems on the wane. With the help of Malcolm (Jon Clair) and his cute sister Maria (Nari Morrow), Joshua begins to emerge from his shell. He takes up basketball despite Eli's objections, and even strikes up a physical relationship with Maria. The young preacher turns his attention to the other kids in school, lecturing them about the importance of children in scripture and thus usurping Father Frank's authority. He even stands up one day during services to relate his interpretations of the holy word. Predictably, the kids soon fall under Eli's power. Joshua, with the help of Malcolm, heads back to Nebraska to unearth an important book buried there by Eli that just might help defeat the evil intentions of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" and his earthly minion. We finally see the incarnation of this demon when Eli holds a ceremony in the warehouse. The film ends on one of those "the evil goes on even though we thought it was over" themes.
Actually, "Children of the Corn 3" isn't half bad. Director James D.R. Hickox is well known as a purveyor of schlocky yet entertaining low budget horror, so maybe that has something to do with it. I got a real kick out of the Eli character, who I thought looked like a miniature version of a certain "Grease 2" star (The movie should carry the title "Honey, I Shrunk Adrian Zmed"). He's not as eerie as Isaac in the first one, but he does carry a certain unease about him. The guy who played Father Frank was a real hoot, too. His hysterics make Rod Steiger's priest in "The Amityville Horror" look tame by comparison. But what really takes the cake in "Corn 3" are the imaginative kill scenes and cheesy special effects. A head bursting into flames, a combination garden tool/pipe atrocity, and people torn apart by "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" insures a good time for all. The model the filmmakers used to depict the corn demon, however, looks woefully inadequate. At one point the beastie snacks on a kid, but it's so obvious that the crew stuck a doll in the creature's mouth that I howled with laughter for hours afterwards. By the way, Charlize Theron appears in a bit part as one of Eli's followers during the final showdown.
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