133 - Children of the Corn 7: Revelation

    A lady goes looking into her grandmother’s disappearance, and finds a bunch of creepy kids hanging around a nearly vacant apartment building.
    I’ve seen nearly all of the Children of the Corn movies.  At least up to this point.  I’ve now discovered that there was a remake of the original, which I’m interested in seeing.  This is, without a doubt, the worst of them.
    I can’t remember much specific about other movies in the series, aside from the first one, which I’ve seen a handful of times.  But I feel like this entry is baffling in how much it got wrong.
    The original movie was partly about fear of children, but it was also about the effect that religious fundamentalism can have.  There’s no reasoning with the members of the cult.  The people near the cult feel drawn to participate, even if they don’t actually believe.  The cult is willing to turn on members.  Part of what made this religious angle work is that even though we disagree with their beliefs, it would be un-American to tell them so.
    In this movie, it’s hard to say that there’s anything like cult behavior.  The kids have magical powers.  They look spooky, and they occasionally do spooky things.  But they don’t have the religious fervor that made the first movie work.  The supernatural elements are strange.  They involve corn stalks sprouting from the ground spontaneously.
    The effects work is cheap.  This came out in 2001, so I’m probably being a bit harsh, but nearly every single effect was noticeable and awkward.
    There’s also a strange issue with the frame rate.  Occasional shots are slowed down, and I’m not positive why.
    The limited locations are conspicuous.  Normally I don’t notice this, but the primary setting for the movie is an apartment building.  We get to see the lobby, basement, elevator, hallway, and a few rooms.  This seems weird.  Most of these movies have been built on large outdoor vistas, mostly abandoned.  This seems like a different movie’s script was adapted to become a Children of the Corn franchise flick.
    About 3/4 of the way through the movie, a cop expresses some romantic interest in the lead.  (I just realized that he’s never shown in uniform.  No budget for that?)  He asks her to dinner.  She dithers, and he agrees to show up at nine to pick her up.  This is him effectively saying “I’ll come by during the last 10 minutes to save you.”  And of course, it comes to pass.
    The last thing that really bugged me is that the movie sets up the use of a heavy gas flow from a stove.  It’s obvious that this will be used as well.  The lead uses it to blow a plume of flame from the apartment, blocking the evil children from reaching her in the hallway.  Immediately after this sequence, there’s no more flame, but the gas is still running.  Then minutes later, when the time is right, the ticking gas winds up exploding, and setting things on fire.  (Of course, terrible, terrible CGI flames.  Really weak work.)
    I’m pretty positive that this whole thing with the gas didn’t make any sense.  When the gas is initially lit, I think a bunch of stuff in the room would have ignited.  Instead, it blew a fireball, which immediately went out.  Then somehow, the gas re-ignited.