Children of the Corn 3: Urban Harvest
"With age comes blindness but we who are young have a vision and that is the gift to us from He Who Walks Behind The Rows! Our greatest harvest is to come!" - Eli
release year: 1995
genre: horror
viewing setting: home DVD, 9/15/14
synopsis: Two orphaned kids from Nebraska are relocated to Chicago, where the evil one immediately plants a crop of magic evil corn.
impressions: If you can believe that a quiet kid can plant a cornfield in a tiny section of ghetto and have it sprout into a gigantic field of magic evil corn, this movie might be for you. While I can understand the decision to try something new and move the setting out of the country, it didn't really feel right. Neither did people getting lost in a patch of corn that was no larger than 10' x 20' but whatever. The evil little kid this time was, again, suitably creepy; it was eventually hinted, strongly, that he was actually the devil in human form. If true, this brings up an interesting question: what was the monster beneath the corn, the "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" ? That monster, when finally revealed in this third film, seemed more powerful than the evil child-prophet. Having said that, I'll also say that Eli was no joke either; by the end of the movie, he had super-strength, telekinesis, and flame throwing powers. There were also other random elements like quicksand and an animated scarecrow, not to mention magic corn that can do whatever the plot calls for. I get the impression that the writers just said "let's just do whatever" and went with it. And finally, the ending...where, despite the evil kid and all that being beaten/destroyed, they're obviously still out there somewhere. These movies are getting to be like the Nightmare on Elm Street series, where rules are outlined for defeating the bad guy, that happens, then he's magically back later. It's pretty corny, really.
body count: 11, until approximately the 70 minute mark when all hell breaks loose
early appearance alert: A young Ashley Judd appears briefly as one of Eli's possessed followers.
acting: The only notable performances were the main evil kid, his stepbrother, and the Chicago brother and sister who befriend the stepbrother.
final word: Worth seeing once, if you like low-key horror movies.
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