Where I Watched It: AMC Plus/Shudder
English Audio Description?: No
We have made far more Children Of The Corn films than I could have ever guessed. However, what I can guess is that they are probably all awful. This one comes from a very specific part of hell, where it’s what we call a career killer. It’s a film that those involved try to pretend isn’t on their resume. No one will watch this movie and think “I should hire this director. He makes good choices.” And, as far as the screenplay goes, let’s just say strike or no strike, I don’t expect him to be working much after this.
This abysmal turd doesn’t even have audio description, because AMC Plus has some kind of aversion toward accessibility. That will not stop me from reviewing their content. Technically, by all the standards I set out for myself as a blind film critic, this is unwatchable on the merits of how much you miss out on during the film. At the beginning, there’s some kind of mass casualty event that is just a bunch of sounds. I have no idea how anyone in this film is killed off. Later, when the franchise introduces “He Who Shits In The Corn” or whatever the fuck his name was, we also don’t know what the monster looks like. Escape The Field wasn’t much better, but at least there was description for those clowns roaming around the cornfield.
Here, we are subjected to the perkiest cult leader likely to ever grace a Children Of The Corn film. It’s like if M3gan was a real person. And our heroes? Well, they can’t be adults, because every adult in this movie and town is awful. They’re mostly all introduced in a sequence that involves them voting on turning their cornfields into timeshares or some totally asinine plot.
Look, if you live in a small hick town where there’s more corn than people, no one wants to buy a timeshare there. Honestly, I don’t think anyone really wants to buy timeshares anyway, they just see it as a weird flex. So, these kids wander in to this town vote, and wonder why they don’t get a vote. The adults respond by doing this really over the top laughing sequence that goes on so long you’ll consider seeing if a screwdriver fits nicely in your ear canal.
The heroes have to be teenagers, so they’re kinda kids, but kinda adults. So this girl who wants to leave this town and go off to college, seems to be the bright hope for this film, except nothing really could save this film. I feel like even if AMC Plus or Shudder commissioned audio description, at least one company would turn them down with “I’m not watching this shit.”
I was all ready for Shudder to reboot the hell out of this franchise, but this is an awful movie. Sadly, even though I could grade this film, it breaks the sole purpose of why I do this. To talk about the need for audio description. So, for a horror film, if you can’t tell who dies when and how, you essentially make the film pointless. Some films are a bit more obvious, when they have a smaller cast, so a slasher following the one by one method is somewhat tolerable. Here, it’s like an entire town full of people are all declared persona non grata, so the body count could be anything.
That’s why Shudder of all services should really consider audio description, because it repeatedly hosts films that are unwatchable. Not all because they embody cinematic dogshit, but because they don’t have audio description. I’m part of a group of blind film lovers who adore horror films still, so there’s a market for Shudder. They just have no desire to tap into it. At the end of the day, when these companies can’t play with the big boys, it’s because the major streamers do things like audio description. Hell, even free streamers like FreeVee and Tubi offer audio description. So, with AMC Plus and Shudder lagging behind, it seems like they want to lose the streaming war.
AMC Plus/Shudder it’s time to get a clue. That time was probably long before anyone greenlit this misguided remake, but nevertheless, it’s about time to join the accessibility train.
Final Grade: Unwatchable
