Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1993)

"Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice" follows a reporter and his estranged son from New York who are traveling through Nebraska in the aftermath of the first film's events; naturally, he wants a story. The price? Perhaps his life.The original "Children of the Corn" installment is not what I'd call high art exactly, but it is a fairly well-put-together horror film from a rather disreputable company (New World). This film picks up immediately where the first leaves off, shifting to new characters. Cue mysterious children, a "normal" girl-next-door love interest for the teenaged boy, and a few outrageous and violent death scenes (including one grand guignol scene in a church ceremony). "Children of the Corn II" is at its core a fairly unoriginal film, but worse, it's actually quite dull and aimless. The script takes a hard right turn in the final act with a rather absurd ecological explanation for the events taking place, which itself is wrapped up in commentary on indigenous peoples and European settlers. The problem is that none of these things really seem to cohere as the film clunks toward its finale. Terence Knox seems bored, as does most of the cast here, and there is a fair amount of soap-opera acting throughout. It's not entirely bad, though—I do think genre fans will find some amusement here with the death scenes and early-nineties stylistics. As a time capsule and a kitschy slasher oddity, it's amusing; as a sequel, it's unexciting, and dare I say anticlimactic. Oddly enough, I may prefer the successive sequels that followed it. 4/10.

The Final Sacrifice continuous soon after the happenings in CotC, the town of Gatlin and its children gets discovered, and then adopted to the nearest town of Gatlin, oddly enough we don't get any views about investigations or any kind of police work been done in Gatlin, it doesn't seem that the kids has gotten any kind of psychical evaluation or questioning either, those murdering children has just got shipped to the nearest town. Strangely enough is this movie made 8 years after Children of the Corn (horror sequels often tends to be released soon after the first movie) so the children from the first movie was probably too old for this movie, so we get bunch of new ones, this time on called Micah steps up to lead the corn cult worshiping children. I can't say i'm a fan of this new character, I would rather had seen Isaac and Malachi, two characters I find a lot creepier than Micah. It's not only Micah pretty much every character in this movie was bad, they were so bleak and boring that I couldn't care less if they died. The plot isn't much engaging either, and there is so many plot holes! Even this movie progress the storyline from the first one, it doesn't fit well. There absolute nothing suspenseful or scary, no atmosphere either, something i really appreciate in the first one. I'm not a huge fan of the first one, but it's better than this. David Price, the director, didn't impress much, and coming from a movie called "Son of Darkness: To Die for II" says it all, Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice was just a cash-in with poor film-team, equipment and no love.

The first Children of the Corn, based on a Stephen king short story, was a dried up, empty husk of a movie, lacking anything really tasty to get the teeth into; whilst part II is far from essential viewing, a belated and predictably dumb sequel, at least there are a few tasty niblets to be found amongst the chaff.Firstly, this one is far more gruesome, the children of Gatlin offing their victims in inventive and often bloody fashion (FX by Bob Keen), highlights including a fatal stabbing with syringes, a messy hemorrhage from the nose and ears caused by voodoo doll, and a silly but fun scene inspired by the Wizard of Oz in which an old woman is crushed by a house (her sister is even called Miss West, as in 'wicked witch of the').The film also benefits from a couple of decent 90s babes in the form of sexy bed and breakfast owner Angela (Rosalind Allen) and busty teen hottie Lacey (Christie Clark). Frustratingly, neither gal gets nekkid for the camera, although Angela does hop in the sack for a brief nudity-free romp with tabloid hack John Garrett (Terence Knox) and lovely Lacey takes a shower under a waterfall in her bikini top, much to the delight of John's son Danny (Paul Scherrer).Sadly, the lacklustre plot itself isn't all any where near as memorable as either the splatter or the eye-candy, and as the story develops, too many elements are introduced that irritatingly conflict with each other—toxic corn that induces hallucinations in children, a psycho cop, He Who Walks Behind The Rows, Indian mysticism—by the end of the film, not only did I not know what was going on, but I didn't really care. Fortunately, as the end of the film approaches, matters get so silly that it can't fail to entertain, with both babes being offered as blood sacrifices, cult leader Micah becoming possessed, and a runaway combine harvester for good measure.5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

**SPOILERS** Long awaited sequel to the 1984 Stephen King home on the range or cornfield horror flick "Children of the Corn" that took nine years in the making.In this corny film the children now eight years older and looking as if they didn't age a day are discovered by the local police and news reporters after their parents were found slaughtered in a basement in the now almost deserted town of Glatin. Instead of trying to find the children's, who should have been the #1 suspects in their murder, parents killers the children are shipped off to Hemingford to be adopted by the unsuspecting people there. In no time at all deaths starts occurring at Hemingford with the elders, that's those over 20 years old, being targeted by an unknown force of nature that happens to be the zombie like children themselves.To make the movie interesting we also have a parent & son dispute involving supermarket tabloid newsman John Garrett, Terrance Knox, and his bratty and foul mouth son Danny, Paul Scherrer. Both Pop & Jr. don't see eye to eye in their very shaky relationship with each other that involves Poppa leaving Momma and taking Jr. with him when Jr was only an infant. This soon ends when Danny on his way back to New York runs into sexy and recently arrived, to Hemmingford, Lacy Hellerstat, Christie Clark. Almost overnight Danny drops is bratty and foul mouth persona, as well as hair color, and goes back home to daddy just so he can be with Lacy who's more then willing to jump into the hey with him.Back to the children of the corn their instructed by their leader the blow-hard and wild eyed Micah, Ryan Bollman, to make ready the ultimate sacrifice in human blood of the elders in town by the time the harvest moon arrives. We also have a strange side-plot in the film involving the town physician Dr, Richard Appley played by Ed Gradey, who's a dead ringer for the former NY State Senate majority leader Joe Bruno, and Sheriff Blaine, Wallace Mark, who are both involved with the dirty goings on with the town's corn harvest. The two had secretly stored away the corn for over a year that resulted in it becoming infected with the deadly Aflatoxin virus! That's what happened to the corn harvest when both Blaine & Appley left it hidden and didn't burn it! The rotten and infected corn is now slowly infecting the entire town which in the end will kill far more people then the children of the corn ever will!***SPOILER*** It's only when university professor and Native American Frank Redbear who's actually gray, Ned Romero, shows up later in the movie that it finally starts to make some kind of sense. Redbear soon gets the totally mixed up John Garrett to go alone with him in his attempt to put an end to the children of the corn and their deranged leader Micah in carrying out their evil plan; That's in them killing everyone over 20 in town. Redbear in an effort to stop the harvest moon human sacrifice gets a hold of a mechanical corn picker and steam rolls through the cornfield picking apart the crazed and demonic Micah and turning him into human cornmeal. That's before he himself finally expired from an arrow shot into his gut by one of Micah's followers.In the end we finally get to see the mysterious "One who walks in the Rows" the real power behind Micah who happens to be some kind giant gopher or prairie dog who only works by night and underground.Despite all the blood letting and violence in the movie it's only good for laughs and nothing else. The spaced out and zombie like children of the corn are so ridicules and unbelievable that you can't take them seriously for a second even if you try to. With all the hysterics in the film the one who really takes the cake, and steals every scene that he's in, is the local preacher Rev. Holling, John Bennes. Rev. Hollings is so off the wall and at the same time comical that it's hard to believe that he, in his constant talks and sermons about and against the evils of sex and fornication, could take himself seriously! Which in fact makes Bennes' "serious" acting that of an Academy Award caliber performance.