A Trailer for the Children of the Corn Remake Walks Behind the Rows

Movies

The Hollywood remake train has a seat in first class for Stephen King, and the latest example is the trailer for a new version of Children of the Corn. Based on one of King’s short stories collected in Night Shift – as is another upcoming adaptation, The Boogeyman – Children of the Corn reimagines the original story as the tale of a little girl organizing the children of a small town to murder the adults, with a high school girl being her only opposition. Written and directed by Kurt Wimmer (who made the excellent Equilibrium and the much-less-excellent Ultraviolet; his screenwriting efforts are a similarly mixed bag), Children of the Corn will arrive in theaters on March 3, 2023, and will have an eighteen-day run before moving to horror streaming service Shudder on March 21, 2023. There are two Children of the Corn trailers, a green-band one and a red-band one; you can see both below:

Do you ever get the feeling that every Hollywood pitch meeting for a remake (which is probably about 90% of them nowadays) involves the words “What if it’s a girl?” This version of Children of the Corn is similar to the plot of the short story and the first movie, except the lead evil kid is now a girl, and the adult couple who were the protagonists are replaced by a high school girl. It feels a little like the Pet Sematary remake (which I didn’t see, but if you’re in the mood to be creeped out of your skin, I highly recommend the book), in which the lead character’s daughter comes back from the dead instead of his son. As for the teenage girl as the new hero, I think this may be a character in the short story who barely has a part but could conceivably be turned into the lead in an adaptation. Perhaps this is a response to the criticisms of It: Chapter Two, where people said the parts with the adults weren’t as interesting as those with the kids. That feels like Hollywood thinking to me. I do like that they’re going into the pseudo-religion that forms among the kids in town revolving around “He Who Walks Behind the Rows;” the first movie had that too, but it wasn’t as scary or satisfying as it was in the short story (much like the rest of the film). That could be cool, especially if they keep it mysterious instead of devolving it into some lame monster fight. I’m not too moved by this either way, but it’s a little disconcerting to see so many of Stephen King’s adaptations being remade when there’s plenty of his material Hollywood hasn’t touched yet.