Stars: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, Terence Knox, Paul Scherrer, Ryan Bollman, Daniel Cerny, Michael Ensign, Nancy Grahn, Jim Metzler

Director: Fritz Kiersch

Summary: This horror collection presents the first three CHILDREN OF THE CORN films, based on a story by Stephen King. See individual titles for more details.<BR>In the first film, young lovers (Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton) on a cross-country trip stop in a small Nebraska community and make a shocking discovery. One day, three years prior to the couples' arrival, the town's children killed all the grown-ups at the apparent behest of a demon simply dubbed He Who Walks Behind the Rows.<BR>The murderous kiddies are back--and they're as vicious as ever--in CHILDREN OF THE CORN: THE FINAL SACRIFICE. After the massacre in Gatlin, Nebraska--in which a group of cultish youngsters slaughtered 50 adults--authorities made sure the remaining perpetrators were resettled in a different town. But soon the children, led by sullen Micah (Rryan Bollman), have resumed their old ways, burning the grownups and preparing the sacrifices. Can anyone stop them before it's too late

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A box set that assembles the first three entries (of six, so far) in the Stephen King-derived minor horror franchise, Children of the Corn: The Collector's Edition puts three not-really-very-good horror pictures together into a fairly satisfying junk food platter than works okay as a demented four-and-a-half-hour miniseries. In the 1984 original, Linda Hamilton and her dead-loss husband are stranded in Gatlin, a small town in Nebraska where the children have formed a cult around the mysterious "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" and slaughtered all the adults. It has a certain creepy atmosphere in the early sections, but degenerates into a pointless run-around, with characters doing silly things that get them into further peril.

Strangely, the sequels play better. In the 1992 The Final Sacrifice, a journo and his estranged son show up to delve into the Gatlin story, and one of the surviving cultists reorganises the gruesome business, with a few special effects hints that give a bit more form to the monster villain. And the 1994 Urban Harvest has another Gatlin kid adopted by a Chicago commodities broker and raising a patch of sinister corn in a backlot; this has a no-name cast and the usual dumb script, but make-up man Screaming Mad George stages some impressively gruesome stuff with a killer scarecrow and murderous cornstalks before finally bringing "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" on-screen as a Thing-ish vegetable monster whose rampage provides this set with something like a big finish. Incredibly, there are three more Corn sequels out there, presumably saved for a follow-up collection.

On the DVD:Children of the Corn: The Collector's Edition's first film is in 16:9 anamorphic, though the original elements aren't in pristine condition and the soundtrack is mono; the 4:3 full screen sequels look sharper and have stereo to show off the Omen-like chanting scores. The only extras are "theatrical trailers", though parts two and three almost certainly didn't play in any theatres. --Kim Newman

Aspect Ratio:	4:3 Full Frame, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	1984
Release Date:	August 12, 2002
Runtime:	266 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C C D 9084
Label:	High Fliers
Keywords:	Final, Harvest, Iii, Children, Box, General, Sacrifice, Corn, Edition, Triple, Set, Urban, Horror, Occult, Ii, Sci, Fi, Collector's
Genre:	Horror/Occult