Hello fellow corn kids fanatics, I am Torstein from Cinema Terror and today I have a fresh
new film to review, the ninth in a series that refuse to go away.
The movie I am talking about is of course Children of the Corn: Runaway.
In Runaway we meet Ruth, played by Marci Miller.
She was able to escape the cult of the corn with her unborn baby and has spent the next
decades of her life on the run from place to place with her child Aaron, trying to do
whatever she can go to unnoticed and not be found by the cult she left behind her.
This life on the run has not been easy on them, not knowing if they will even have a
roof over their head the very next day.
This, and the disturbing childhood Ruth has had, has set its tool on her mental state,
giving her visions that she is unable to figure out if are real or not.
When she and Aaron try to settle down in a small town, her past starts to haunt her more
and more and she becomes unsure if she is going crazy or if the children of the corn
has found her and are out to get her and her child.
So, this is the ninth entry to the everlasting Children of the Corn series.
It's amazing that such a small film like the original has been able to spark so many sequels,
as even though I enjoy it, it is not a film held in the highest of regards and none of
the films have been big commercial successes.
But the franchise is held by Dimension Films, who as with the Hellraiser franchise, seem
frightened to let the rights to any of these horror franchises go, even if they put next
to none effort into them.
I guess I should start with a small rundown of my connection with the Children of the
Corn films.
Like I said, I do enjoy the first one and I also think the second has good enough stuff
in it to be enjoyable.
I have fond memories of the fourth one and will still stand on it being good, while the
remaining entries have been pretty poor with the last one from 2011, Children of the Corn:
Genesis being just awful.
Add to the decline in the franchise with the fact that Runaway was directed by John Gulager,
a guy I'm not a big fan of, then you can say that I did not have high hopes for this film.
But as you should always do with whatever movie you watch, you have to give it a chance
and surprisingly enough I found Children of the Corn: Runaway to not be terrible.
In fact, it was almost a good film!
I enjoyed how restrained the film was and how often it gave the movie time to breathe,
letting us just have a moment with the characters, usually Ruth.
There are some great silent moments I could feel for Ruth with no dialogue or event taking
place on the screen.
And that's a high praise as Marci Miller gives the character a pretty rough exterior, making
her come off as rough and tough, but still with some vulnerablility coming through.
The drama aspect of the film was the best part, making me wonder if Gulager perhaps
could do a great job with a film that does not play within the horror genre.
I mentioned earlier that I am not a big fan of his work so far, and some of that has to
do with his shooting style.
I just don't find his movies to be very well shot and dislike his fondness of hand held
camera when its not needed.
Technically I guess they are well done as it looks like he is getting what he wants
out of his shoots, so its not like he is not good at what he does, it's just that the style
he wants is not something I enjoy.
There are also some odd changes in the way some of the characters act that feels out
of place and I am unsure of the reasoning for some of the choices done with them.
Most of the cast does a respectable job.
Miller is great, especially as the film doesn't give her all to much to work with and I also
found Mary Kathlyn Bryant to be lovely in her part as the local waitress.
Jake Ryan Scott who plays Aaron is given absolutely nothing to work with at all, but they keep
him a bit away from the focus so the lack of well anything to his character doesn't
become an annoyance.
The biggest problem with Runaway starts when it wants to be a horror film.
The Children of the Corn aspect of it feels like it don't belong and I had zero interest
in any of that stuff.
I would have much more enjoyed this film if it had not taken part in the franchise as
it feels like it doesn't belong there and the most interesting part was the struggle
that Ruth is going through due to her taking part in these macabre acts when she was young.
And I understand that the kids from the original town would be mad at someone escaping them,
but why they would spend the next fifteen years hunting them down, and not grow up to
be adults themselves in the process, is left unexplained.
At least from what I could gather.
The lack of interest in the horror part of the film left the final part of it to be quite
dull for me as I was not engaged in this part of the film at all and there wasn't much in
its execution to keep me engaged.
Children of the Corn: Runaway is a suprise to the franchise.
Compared to the last five films, this is a step in the right direction.
That being said, the good parts of Runaway are the parts that are not connected to the
Children of the Corn story.
If you want a new film with kids killing their parents in the name of the corn cult, then
Runaway is not for you.
If you can ignore the previous entries and are willing to just sit through a decent new
film and look past its name, then Runaway is not a bad choice, but nothing you should
go out of your way to see.
Children of the Corn: Runaway was overall ok and as such it deserves a score of 2.5
out of 5.
Have you seen Children of the Corn: Runaway yet?
If so, what did you think of it and how would you rank it compared to the previous entries
in the franchise?
And where do you want the franchise to go next?
More of these low budget films, a bigger budget remake or let the kid rest and burry it for
some years?
Let me know about it in the comment section below, like subscribe and all of that stuff
and remember to stay away from kids who have a fascination with cornfields.
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