Stephen King's Children Of The Corn was adapted into a feature-length movie in 1984 and spawned an entire franchise that includes eight sequels, a prequel, and one remake as of this writing. While each installment contains remnants of the original, there were a lot of changes made to the 2009 remake for several reasons. Here's every major difference between the 1984 Children Of The Corn and the 2009 remake.
For over 40 years, Stephen King's stories have been adapted and remade numerous times. After he published his first novel in 1974, Brian De Palma transformed it two years later into the iconic horror movie Carrie, starring Sissy Spacek as the titular telekinetic teenager. It was then followed by Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and Fritz Kiersch's Children Of The Corn. With an expansive bibliography that includes 61 novels - not including his short story collections - and over 200 short stories, King has an abundance of horrors to provide to audiences worldwide. Today, it is virtually impossible to avoid witnessing some form of his content even outside of the numerous adaptations, as even popular horror series like The Haunting Of Bly Manor and American Horror Story are known to feature Easter eggs pertaining to the author's works.
Out of every story King has penned, Children Of The Corn has spawned the most movies. In comparison to all of the others, the original 1984 movie ranks much higher than the others. This is due to the fact that it stays the truest to King's source material and was unique upon its release. As more installments released, the series started to lose its uniqueness, which caused the subsequent sequels to suffer. When Donald P. Borchers set out to remake Children Of The Corn, it wasn't necessarily an anticipated release due to the franchise's history of boring storylines, but it did have a great deal of potential to reinvigorate it. However, the remake failed to impress audiences based on just how different it is from the original, which caused it to falter under the expectation that it would retain some semblance of the original's atmospheric and situational horrors.
When The Movie Takes Place
The 1984 movie takes place in 1980 right before the children take over the town. It then jumps three years ahead to 1983, when a young couple travels to Gatlin after accidentally hitting Joseph, a young member of the cult, with their car. In the 2009 movie, the events begin in 1963 when the child cult forms. Twelve years later, the couple arrives in Gatlin under the same circumstances, but the entire atmosphere of town is much different. Three years wasn't long enough for the town to become as desolate as it appears in the remake. As such, the original showcases that there's still remnants of life in the homes of Gatlin and children who take issue with the cult mentality that caused their friends and family to perish. In the 2009 Children Of The Corn, the town is void of any sense of humanity, as are the children, which may better the impact of the children's takeover, but it largely undermines the horrors of what they did the the adults in town.
How The Children Take Over
Children Of The Corn begins with how the children come to takeover the town of Gatlin. While audiences witness this event take place in the 1984 movie, it is not displayed in the remake. Instead, it is merely mentioned that it is time for the children to kill those who have sinned, whom they consider to be anyone over the age of 19. In removing this iconic opening, the 2009 movie misses the opportunity to highlight how sadistic and unrelenting Isaac is as a leader.
It takes away from the life of Gatlin and what it was like before the children took over. This display of humanity in the movie connected the reality of small-town rural America with the horrors of what lies within the corn. It creates real-life horror rather than the remake. It relies too heavily on the fact that it is an American folk horror story rather than an examination of the bible belt and how Midwestern towns are often ignored or go unnoticed even when horrific events transpire.
The Differences Between The 1984 & 2009 Couples
The couples are very different in both movies. In the original, they are travelling to Seattle so that Burt (Peter Hornton) can start his new career as a physician. Children Of The Corn 2009's couple are made up of a Black woman and a white man who is a veteran of the Vietnam War. They are travelling across the country while planning their second honeymoon. While it may seem somewhat unimportant to the overall storyline, it is integral to how the events unfold. Burt and Vicky (Linda Hamilton, The Terminator) are a relatively happy couple who work together to survive the cult long enough to leave Gatlin. On the other hand, Burt (David Anders, The Vampire Diaries) and Vicky (Kandyse McClure, Hemlock Grove) are constantly at each other's throats. They do not get along and do not work well together, which results in their deaths as they become separated in the midst of Isaac and Malachai's horrors.
How The Children Maintain Their Following
The original Children Of The Corn doesn't need to expand on how the children maintain their following because they aren't as disconnected from the slaughter of the town to the events of the movie. Due to the fact that the 2009 remake jumps from 1963 to 1975, it had to highlight how they're able to survive as a cult. According to Isaac and Malachai, a new prophet is born and will rise to power when the current one reaches the age of nineteen, which is when they are considered adults.
The teenage members of the cult do have sex with one another, as Malachai's girlfriend appears pregnant throughout the movie's entirety. In one peculiar and deeply upsetting scene, they depict under what circumstances they are allowed to have sex; the two individuals fornicate while all of the children watch and cheer. This didn't need to happen in the original movie and, surely, it was only implemented in the remake as a means of avoiding glaring plot holes.
He Who Walks Behind The Rows' Powers
He Who Walks Behind The Rows is a fertility demon that assists in the growth of the corn crops. Members of the child cult pray to him and do as he wishes. In the Stephen King universe there are several entities that pose a major threat to both adults and children. It has even been theorized that He Who Walks Behind The Rows could be Randall Flagg from the apocalyptic novel The Stand, but this has yet to be proven. In the 1984 movie, he is far more subdued and does not enact his gruesome slayings of the adult members of the cult of the parents. It seems as though he requires the children to murder the adults in order for him to feed, but this changes when they come to meet in the middle of the field.
In the 2009 movie, he can manipulate the corn stalks and kill whoever he pleases. While he prefers sacrifices, He Who Walks Behind The Rows has more supernatural capabilities than he does in the 1984 movie. In turn, this elevates the fear of the children and the corn, rather than the children who worship the corn as in the 1984 original. There are countless differences between the original and the remake of Children Of The Corn, but the biggest are He Who Walks Behind The Rows, how the children took over and maintain their following, and how the movies' respective couples navigate their dangerous situation.