Comments on: Sundays with Stephen: The Beginning

By: Here Comes Tomorrow » Sundays with Stephen - Week Seven - Children of the Corn

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:56:57 +0000

[...] to see every theatrical Stephen King movie ever made (according to our original guidelines, see here for details), we got to see the inestimable classic, Children of the [...]

By: admin

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:55:53 +0000

Oh, I know, objectively I suppose, that Maximum Overdirve isn’t the worst movie ever. But it’s also a personal hatred of mine. Something about the sheer inherent stupidity of that film, layer upon layer, just bothers me.

It’s sort of tragic too; according to the Wikipedia, there was a nasty accident on set and a guy lost his eye making that. I mean, wow. Losing your eye to make a bad movie about killer semis and rednecks.

Which I suppose is the other point, I mean, there’s no one for me to root for. I’m not really pro-truck enslavement, but I’m definitely anti-redneck. It’s a bit like the tagline to the vomitious Alien vs Predator movie: No matter who wins, we lose.

By: david

david — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:08:33 +0000

I don’t know what the deal with the second movie is, either. I assume it’s some dispute between Miramax, who produced 2 and the direct-to-video sequels following it, and Paramount, who owns video distribution rights. I brought it up since I’ve been down that path: Children of the Corn II was (is? too lazy to check) on the IMdb bottom 100 list, so hey, why not, right? I did manage to find a copy, one that appears to be a Hong Kong–made VHS rip, and…we had to take a few breaks in the middle.

This project sounds interesting whatever parameters you set for yourselves, but it probably is a good idea to exclude that one. And Maximum Overdrive isn’t that bad. At least in that one the killing machines are mobile (cf. The Mangler).

By: admin

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:48:48 +0000

Oh yeah, I forgot to say, we do know that there is a limit to how much adaptation King will allow, because of the whole Lawnmower Man lawsuit. Since that’s the only one he’s ever insisted they take his name off, I think that’s a pretty good measure of how far you’d have to go to be out of bounds here, so long as it was based on an actual King story to any reasonable degree.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:41:38 +0000

I haven't looked, to be honest, on the second Children of the Corn. My standard would be, I suppose, whether or not he actually *wrote* the material the movie is based on. The problem with the Children of the Corn movies is that after the first, they're not really based on anything he came up with. They have murder, and I suppose, they have corn. It's pretty shaky. In the Stephen King Goes to the Movies short story collection, he has a foreword explaining his take on the film adaptations of the various stories inside. He actually likes the first Children of the Corn, though not as much as his story; he then states that he has no interest in or control over the sequel franchise, and doesn't even know how many of them have been made, or if there are future plans to make others. Here, lemme type up the relevant paragraph:

One other note: Children of the Corn has generated more awful sequels than any other story in my ouevre. There's Children of the Corn II, III and IV, at least. Possibly more (I eventually lost count). If my internet connection weren't down as I write this, I'd check to see if there was a Children of the Corn in Space. I almost think there was. The only one I was really rooting for was Children of the Corn Meet Leprechaun. I wanted to hear that little leprechaun guy say "Give me back me corn!" in his cute little Irish accent.

I know it's a bit of a gray area sometimes; mostly it's not so hard though. When it's taken from an entire novel, like The Shining, It, Carrie, Firestarter, Christine, The Dead Zone, etc, or when he was definitely involved in adapting his own material for a movie, like in some of the short-story anthology movies (Creepshow 2, Tales from the Darkside), it's pretty easy. When he was completely involved, like Creepshow or Maximum Overdrive, it's even easier (though someone should really go back in time and convince him not to do Overdrive... ugh). I'm not saying I absolutely *won't* watch unofficial sequels; I've been dying to see, and then drink until I forget, my dusty old copy of Return to Salem's Lot. They're just not required, and would be extra credit, so to speak. I guess I could see the logic in watching I - IV, but since he didn't even know about 5, 6 or 7, they're right out. (Hmm... Netflix has 1-7, except for 2. Why not 2, I wonder...)

By: david

david — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:48:01 +0000

No Children of the Corn sequels? But when so many of the movies, especially the later ones, are more loose adaptations of ideas than translations of King’s works, where do you draw the line between story and screenplay?

Couldn’t find a copy of the second one, could you?