Children Of The Corn 1-3 DVD Boxset (3-DVD Set)

Children Of The Corn - In the town of Gatlin, Nebraska. A strange boy preacher named Isaac convinces the towns children to believe in a demon called He who walks behind the rows, one day Malachai who is Isaac's second in command leads all the children to brutally slay all the adults in the town. A few years later Burt and Vicky are driving across country for Burt's new job as a physician, when they hit a young boy who was standing in the middle of the road. When Burt gets out to check on the child, as a physician it's blatantly obvious to him that the child was already dead before they hit him. With Vicky in shock at what's happened, Burt decides to put the body in the boot and get to the nearest town. Eventually the two end up in the deserted looking town of Gatlin, as usual in these films, the couple split up and Vicky is captured by Malachai and taken into the cornfield. Burt now has to find Vicky and save her before she's sacrificed to He who walks behind the rows, with no idea if the children have been brainwashed or if there really is a demon in the corn fields.

Children Of The Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice - Continues almost immediately after the events of the original. The residents of Hemingford, Nebraska, the town next to Gatlin decides to take in the children despite most of the evidence pointing to the children being the cause of all the adults deaths in town. John Garret, a reporter for the Worldly Inquirer is in Hemingford with his son Danny to report on the children being taken in. In no time at all, one of the former Gatlin children enters the corn fields and is possessed by a demon sent by He who walks behind the rows, over the course of the weekend, the children in town start killing everyone over 18. It's up to out of town reporter John and his son Danny to save the adult population, and free the children from the demon.

Children of the Corn 3: Urban Harvest - Eli and Joshua were residents of a small town in Nebraska, after the mysterious death of their father, they are adopted by a couple in Chicago. Eli has brought with him a suitcase full of corn, and on his first night as everybody sleeps, he sneaks into an empty factory and buries the corn he brought and prays to He who walks behind the rows. The corn he plants grows into a full corn field within days, and over time Eli starts bringing the local school kids around to his strange beliefs. As the strange plot involving children eating the corn becoming followers and adults that eat it dying in comical ways, Eli's own brother Joshua fights back against him and tries to destroy the demon for good. It doesn't really work, 5 awful sequels followed making it 8 films in total.

The acting in the original is of a high standard, Peter Horton who was married to Michelle Pfeiffer at the time was a likeable lead as Burt. Linda Hamilton was an unknown at the time, she played the role of Vicky and showed great potential, she went on to huge success later the same year as Sarah Connor in The Terminator. John Franklin is extremely creepy as Isaac, he later returned for part 6 in the series, and Courtney Gains plays his role as Malachai really well and was probably the most memorable character in the film. It was shot for $800,000 by first time director Fritz Kiersch, and was based on the novel by Stephen King. The Final Sacrifice was directed by David Price on a slightly increased budget of $900,000, and came a full 9 years after the original. The cast is made up of virtual unknowns but they do decent jobs, it also has a slightly more comedic tone to the original with increased gore. Essentially it does feel like a bit of a retread of the first, and offers very little new. Urban Harvest arrived 2 years later and was directed by James D.R. Hickox, the third film does try changing things by moving from the country into an urban area. This is both a blessing and a curse, it allows for new ideas but it loses the creepiness of the country corn fields and it's a little silly how the demon moves to the city. Daniel Cerny is quite effective as Eli, he might be known to some horror fans as the demon child in Demonic Toys. Part 3 also marked the film debuts of Charlize Theron in a non speaking role and Nicholas Brendon in a small role.

There's actually some very decent extras in this box set, the original has a commentary track with the director, producer and the actors that played Isaac and Malachai. It's a very fun commentary with them enjoying sharing their memories of the film, and have many insightful things to say. Harvesting horror is a new documentary made for this set, storyboard art, poster gallery, trailer and biographies. Part 2 has another commentary from the director and actors, theatrical trailers, photo galleries and biographies. Part 3 has no extras apart from a few trailers and was a bit of a let down, but I wasn't surprised as the quality of the films decrease. The picture quality on all 3 is above standard, and all 3 have subtitles for the hard of hearing.

I love the original film and it still holds up well today, it's more of a suspense film with the deaths suggestively gory rather than shown. It's virtually the only film to watch to see Linda Hamilton before she hit the big time with the Terminator, and it's extremely fun and cheesy. It does start going downhill in the second film and that continues into the third, but they're decent sequels and well worth watching if you want to see the story continue from the original. I believe these were meant to just be a trilogy as the story seems to wrap up at the end of the third, and all the sequels after went straight to dvd whereas the first three were released theatrically. It's nowhere near the best trilogy that you'll buy, but for the price, fun and decent extras then it's definitely worth a look. You never know, if you like your horror with a touch of humour and a lot of cheese, you may just love this box set. If the quality of the original was maintained throughout, this would've been a cracker.