DirectorKurt Wimmerwon’t be skimping on the blood in his new adaptation ofStephen King’s classicChildren of the Corn. Unlike the original story which sees killer children worshiping an evil spirit that lives among the rows of corn outside an abandoned Nebraska town, Wimmer’s take centers on one kid, Eden (Kate Moyer), who becomes the host for a demonic entity from the dying fields and recruits the local kids to rise up and brutally murder anyone in their path. Ahead of the horror film’s theatrical release on Friday, Collider can share an exclusive clip that shows the titular kids feeding the fields with the blood of a pig and generally being horrifying.
The clip opens up with the young high schooler Boleyn (Elena Kampouris) coming across the children in a pit dipping their brushes in pails full of blood and using them to paint the corn roots. Between the splashing of the blood and the dirty, gory looks of all the children, it’s already an unsettling scene, but it only gets worse once Boleyn starts to question them. Eden matter-of-factly tells her that they took the blood from the pig owned by Dylan’s father, adding that they “gotta feed the corn somehow.” By questioning their actions, it’s clear Boleyn has drawn the ire of the children, even if they don’t say it. Their haunting stares are like daggers as they look up at her with anger and disgust. It’s an early sign that Boleyn will end up on the opposite end of their rampage at some point.
Boleyn is the sole hope of the small town to survive Eden’s terror as all the adults end up dead or jailed by the kids. For Kampouris, the lead role is the latest in her promising young career. Previously, she led the cast of Facebook Watch’s original seriesSacred Lies, and she starred in the loaded Netflix superhero seriesJupiter’s LegacywithJosh Duhamel,Leslie Bibb, andBen Daniels. She’s next set forMy Big Fat Greek Wedding 3after first appearing as Paris in the original sequel in 2016.
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In addition to Kampouris and Moyer,Children of the Cornalso starsCallan MulveyandBruce Spence. Wimmer wrote and directed the film and re-teamed with hisPoint BreakpartnerJohn Baldecchion the production end. Effects were done by theJames Cameron-co-founded digital production house Digital Domain which also executive produced.
The theatrical run has been a long time coming for Wimmer’sChildren of the Cornadaptation. It was one of the earliest productions to start up following the advent of the pandemic and originally saw a theatrical release in Sarasota in October 2020. After that, all talk of the adaptation went silent until RLJE and Shudderrecently acquired the flick. Now that the film is finally theater-bound, it marks Wimmer’s return to the big screen for the first time as a director since 2006 with theMila Jovovichsci-fi actionerUltraviolet.
Children of the Cornfinally emerges in theaters on March 3. Check out the exclusive clip below:
