Well, there is some creepy stuff here at times.
Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996)
Directed By: Greg Spence (The Prophecy II)
Where to get it: Echo Bridge
The Prologue
Well, it looks like we have arrived at “The Gathering”. But fear not, loyal readers. This isn’t that OTHER Gathering where clowns rap and people spray cheap Faygo soft drinks all over one another in one of the most bizarre, sad, and pathetic displays in human history. This one takes place near a corn field in, Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering! This episode of “As the Corn Turns” (lame joke I know), comes to us in the form of a new Echo Bridge blu-ray that places it on the same disc with three other Children of the Corn movies. But perhaps the best thing about this film is the fact that is also stars none other than, Naomi Watts! See?? You just never know who will pop up in one of these things.
The Movie
The horror returns when the children of a small Midwestern town are haunted by an unspeakable evil that lurks somewhere out behind the corn fields. A bright young medical student must solve the frightening mystery that plagues the children…before a sinister stranger can claim their souls for his own. It’s a pulse-pounding race against time and terror that will leave even the most die-hard suspense fans on the edge of their seats…You can’t see it, but after copying and pasting that from the site, I am soo making spooky fingers right now.
While being a much needed improvement (plot wise) from the last Children of the Corn film, you notice from the start that this time around they have decided to take a more slower moving, methodical style pace with this one overall. The movie takes it’s own sweet time to set things up, it never does get in a rush, but lucky for us all our lead is THE Naomi Watts! And even before her more well known movie days that would come later, you can still see here that she knows what she is doing. So naturally, as should be expected, she’s the best part of this movie and really the star of the show.
We do have some awesome gore scenes here. I think that may be the only thing these movies still seem to have in common at this point of the series. We have kids who spend way too much time in a corn field and we have some great natural gore here as well. To go along with our eerie story of kids getting sick and going down the evil path, including some creepy twins. We have people getting chopped in half, among other cool effects to see. Now, I don’t believe that the leader of the kids is as creepy as others have been before him, but you gotta just take the good with the bad with these mid 90′s straight to video horror films. They always come with a lot of hit and miss things. With those hits being good and sometimes those misses being terrible. I don’t think I’d call anything terrible here in this movie, but some things just don’t work.
If the movie does commit any real crime, it’s the fact that it moves just too slowly in spots. I’m all for building up atmosphere and all that great stuff, but this one perhaps takes too many liberties in those areas at times. Still, you do have some creepy things, not counting an overused cut effect that gives us flashes of our movie’s evil leader along with a loud and screeching musical note. It was OK to use once, or maybe even twice. Sadly, it’s used a number of times here and it’s a number too many. That being said, it’s still better than the last film in this series. And who doesn’t like to look at, Naomi Watts??
The Conclusion
At this point, each film seems to be it’s own thing with little to no connection at all to the other films that came before this one. I did enjoy it more than I did the last one before it, but we still seem to be unable to capture the goodness of part 2 (and perhaps the original?) at this point. Still, can’t argue with a purchase that gives you four movies for a good price.
The Rating (5.5/10)
Chucks website
