Horrorthon is in full swing; so, it’s time to review a classic: Children of the Corn from Night Shift. Night Shift is an anthology devoted to failure. It’s all about Men not measuring up and people getting hurt by their failings. Poor Stephen, he needs a hug. Children of the Corn was published in 1977 in Penthouse…the 60s and 70s were weird. I’m not anti-p0rn because I really don’t care, but why mix it with literature? Was it that the WWII and Boomer generations wanted a one-stop shop? If so, why not merge the p0rn, literature, fishing gear, and fire extinguishers?

If you’re reading an early King novel, be prepared to be depressed because it is always a gruesome and unhappy ending because a guy failed. Children of the Corn is no exception. I wonder if Night Shift wasn’t this clever anthology I always thought it was, but was actually Stephen King’s clumsy pitch meeting short story compilation? Many of the stories that were adapted to film were way better written. To be honest, the film versions of Stephen King’s short stories are usually significantly better than his books.

The plot is that Burt and his wife Vicky are trying to do a cross country trip to save their marriage. Once they arrive in Nebraska, they get trapped and sacrificed to a pagan corn god who likes to use children as his henchmen- a typical Nebraska custom. The Cornhuskers draw a big crowd, but in the off season, it’s always about the pagan corn god murders. During the Cornhusker season, the residents still do sacrifices, but the victims are deep fried with the other Fair Foods, which means that the victims are all A salted and Battered. *BOOM*

There are a few more details that I am leaving here like the He Who Walks Behind the Rows etc., but once you’ve seen one pagan corn god, you’ve seen them all.