Friday, April 6, 2012

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)

Someone called in a LOT of favors for this movie. The cast includes Eva Mendes, Ahmet Zappa, Kane Hodder, Fred Williamson, David Carradine, and Alexis Arquette.  For the fourth sequel to an average movie?  Seriously? 

Apparently before the days of GPS, when people had to drive in different cars on a roadtrip, they leave blowup dolls at different landmarks, pointing in the right direction.  That seems both expensive and inefficient.  The couple in the leading car stops to hang another blowup doll and encounter the creepy children from the corn!  They dispatch with the couple quickly, and the following car continues on, not realizing what has happened to their friends. 

The second group, consisting of two guys and two girls, are apparently carrying someone's ashes to an unspecified place.  They get into a little fender bender and hike into town to try and find a tow truck.  A local bartender (Kane Hodder OMFG!) tells them that the tow truck is unavailable, and they learn of a local weirdo housing a bunch of kids and preaching "He Who Walks Behind the Rows."  Allison (Stacy Galina) realizes that her brother is somehow involved with this strange cult, while Kir (Eva Mendes) becomes interested in one of it's members, and sees truth in the "teachings." 

Allison digs further in order to save her brother, and the group gets split up, leaving Allison to fend for herself.    Kir becomes strangely attached to both the religion and a cute guy in the group.  I honestly think this whole storyline was contrived to make Eva Mendes climb a long ladder in an incredibly short dress.  A battle ensues and it appears at first that they have a little bit of a better chance than previous people stranded in the corn have had.  They find barns, cars, etc. and put up quite the fight.  There seems to be more drama and emotion in this installment than in previous ones, and of course, the ending leaves it open for yet another sequel. 

The problem with extending these sequels on and on is that they get farther and farther from the actual premise of the original story.  So a weird religion that started out with some psycho kids first spread to Chicago, now back to somewhere in Nebraska, now being led by some old dude?  WTF. Wasn't the point that the whole thing involved only kids?  The more of these I watch, I think they could have been better as just standalone movies unrelated to corn but focusing on creepy religious hicks. 

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