FINAL GIRL explores the slasher flicks of the '70s and '80s...and all the other horror movies I feel like talking about, too. This is life on the EDGE, so beware yon spoilers!

Jul 15, 2013

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest


What in the Orville Redenbacher hell did I just watch?

For serious, y'all, I had no idea that Children of the Corn II and III are so damn awesome. I thought the second film was off the rails, but for fuck's sake Part III (1995) gets so far off the rails that it somehow gets onto another set of rails and chug-a-choo-choos into space like the end of Night Train to Terror.


The original film seems so quaint now! Sure, it had its share of WTFery with the giant worm monster you never see and Isaac dissolving into red sparkles...and then blasting off...and then returning with "explosion hair" like a cartoon character...but at its heart it was a time-worn tale of Religious Nutsos Gone Wild. Meanwhile, in Urban Harvest, the supernatural is brought to the forefront and anything goes. ANYTHING. ANYTHING I SAY.
  • a fancy "nice house" on the outskirts of Chicago is built five feet away from an abandoned factory
  • there is a scene that features a suitcase full of corn cobs that whisper "Give us your blood!" to Nancy Grahn of television's Santa Barbara and television's Models Inc and oh my God you have no idea how happy it makes me to type all that
  • a killer scarecrow? sure, whatever
  • madness and hallucinations transmitted via cockroaches in soup? uh huh, okay
  • a woman's head splitting open and bugs spilling out? yup
  • a corn field grown magically in an abandoned factory and sustained by a mini-Motel Hell-style people garden? you bet
  • a woman inhaling flames and melting from the inside out? why the hell not
  • fireballs repelled by a "Bible" adorned with corn mosaics? of course
  • A SLIMY GIANT PUPPET MONSTER THING PICKING UP AND SWALLOWING A DOLL WHICH HAS LEGS FLAILING STOP-MOTION-LY? YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES
Clearly Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest does not care a whit about taste or making sense. It has not one fuck left to give about you, about any Corn lore that has been established, about anything. It is a maverick, you see, a rebel playing by its own rules. Its only rule is that it doesn't have any rules. Whatever else I have to endure today, however bad these movies get...it will all have been worth it for Urban Harvest. Outlander, we have your new favorite movie!

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