Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return

Starring:Natalie Ramsey, John Franklin, Paul Popowich, Nancy Allen, Stacy Keach, Alix Koromzay, John Patrick White, Sydney Bennett, Nathan Bexton, William Prael, Gary Bullock
Director: Kari Skogland
Studio: Dimension
Product Type: DVD

Description

With riveting performances from stars John Franklin (CHILDREN OF THE CORN, ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES), Stacy Keach (AMERICAN HISTORY X), and Alix Koromzay (CARRIE II, THE HAUNTING, NIGHTWATCH), ISAAC'S RETURN is the sixth and newest bone-chilling chapter in the thrilling CHILDREN OF THE CORN series! On a trip to find her birth mother, Hannah Martin picks up a dark stranger who kicks off a mysterious chain of events. Little does Hannah know that her journey may help fulfill a sinister prophecy made 19 years earlier by Isaac, the cult's original evil leader! It's a hair-raising movie event you don't want to miss as Isaac makes his terrifying return and the frightening Children Of The Corn achieve their ultimate destiny!

Customer Reviews:

I AM FURIOUS NOW!.......2006-03-20

MAN, I HATE THIS! I cannot take this any more. Watch the original and that is it. The original needs no sequel at all. Every sequel to the original sucks.

Isaac is a midget. LOL.......2006-02-05

Where to begin, I have no clue. A talentless pool of unknown actors assemble together and do their best to act their way to an undeserved paycheck. The script was juvenile and the acting was just as bad. It is only appropriate that bad acting be accompanied by bad dialogue, don't ya think? There was some unintended comic relief in this messy film. Guess what folks, Isaac returns and he is a midget with a whiney voice. I almost felt bad for Isaac for having been in a coma for so many years only to survive as a silly looking buffoon. I couldn't help but laugh every time poor Isaac had something philisophical to mutter. Utter nonesense and not scary one bit. The whole movie is trash. Oh geez, why do is waste my time.

A little better than 5.......2006-01-10

Well, looks like I'm about done with this. The past two viewing tend to suggest that I'd have been better off if I'd stopped with 4, but then I would just spent the remainder of my life wondering what might have been. Much like in 5, I don't know if their is anything too terribly grating or stunningly incompetent about the film as a whole, it's just rather uneventful and fairly dull. As you may have surmised, Isaac is back, and he's still a jerk. This is kinda fun, but John Franklin's mere presence isn't worth too much, and he really doesn't do much of anything. Another plus is that the film is occasionally slightly atmospheric. Only occasionally, and only very slightly, but it's somethin'. Unfortunately, CotC 666 lacks the laugh out loud hilarity of the better portions of 2 and 3, and the slightly intriguing plot and decent gore of 4. So, we aren't left with much. The climax is passably involving, and amusingly nonsensical, but overall it's a long journey to nowhere. That, and where's the killing? This film has only got a single sexy teen, rather than a pack of them, so we have very few preliminary killings. (Well, the protagonists in the CotC films usually weren't very sexy, but you get my meaning.) A few of those would've spiced things up substantially, but this is all we got.

I had an okay time watching this, but I really can't think of any reason why you ought to see it unless you have some bizarre compulsion to see all the CotC films. Not that I'd know anything about that.

Grade: D+

Oh the humanity!.......2004-12-26

No other author in recent memory has had as much consistent success selling books as Stephen King. For roughly three decades the Maine writer churned out book after book, each one selling more and more copies. He's a world unto himself, the lucky fellow! He's so successful that he could throw out his pens, put away his typewriters, bury his word processor six feet under, never write another word in his life, and STILL have enough money to wallpaper the Great Wall of China five times over. In many respects, it's Stephen King's world and the rest of us are just living in it. But, and this is a gigantic but, an enormous number of metaphysically bad films based on his novels threaten to put a serious dent in his legacy. We all know the good ones, the ones that not only scared audiences stiff but also helped propel King's career to even greater heights. "Carrie" is probably the best example, followed by "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Dead Zone." These are wonderful, magical films that one can watch again and again without wearying of them. Then there are the rest: the truly wretched refuse that reminds one of dental plaque or the junk that washes up on the shores of a filthy river. Welcome to the Children of the Corn franchise.

"Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return" introduces us to Hannah (Natalie Ramsey), a young lady heading back to the now infamous Gatlin, Nebraska in order to answer some important personal questions: why am I drawn to a town out in the sticks? Who is my mother and where is she? Will accepting this role in a schlock, straight to video clunker enhance my career opportunities? You can quickly grasp the metaphysical importance of such ponderings. In quick succession, Hannah runs into a string of problems. Pushy town cop Cora (Alix Koromzay) gives her sass before she even arrives in town. Doc Michaels (Stacy Keach), the town quack, insists on imprinting his own weird impressions on the girl. But the most bizarre occurrence confronting Hannah during her first visit to Gatlin is the sight of a short man hooked up to a slew of machines in a hospital. This figure is none other than Isaac (John Franklin), the original apostle of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" in the first film. Apparently, the boyish preacher did not perish at the end of "Children of the Corn," although it sure looked like it then, but slipped into a deep coma that has rendered him helpless for all these years. The arrival of Hannah, however, fulfills an old prophecy that will see Isaac out of his coma and possibly bring about a reemergence of the corn demon.

As "Children of the Corn 666" progresses, not so much in a linear manner but in a serious of jerky fits and starts capable of inducing whiplash in the viewer, more of the "storyline" emerges for our consumption. It appears that many worshippers of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" survived the Peter Horton induced apocalypse at the end of the first film and grew up. They've been waiting all these years--raising their own children and acting like responsible adults--for Isaac to awaken from his slumber and call forth the demon. Why? I don't know. Since cult members always considered anyone over the age of eighteen the enemy, I can't imagine why grown people would welcome the malevolent corn god with open arms. Wouldn't he just pop up out of the earth and rip every person with age wrinkles and five o'clock shadow into bloody pulp? The whole subplot involving Hannah's reunion with her mother Rachel (Nancy Allen) withers when confronted with fundamental questions the movie refuses to ask, let alone answer. It should go without saying that numerous individuals find the idea of a possible Isaac/corn devil reconciliation an unpalatable situation. These are the people who end up on the wrong end of scythes and other sharp objects.

What we have here is such a mess of a film that it easily ranks as the worst entry in the franchise. So many characters parade past the screen, from Gabriel (Paul Popowich) to Jake (William Prael) to a dozen others that it's impossible to keep it all straight. Only the presence of the attractive Natalie Ramsey and the very gorgeous Sydney Bennet in the role of cranky Morgan help keep this film down on stomachs made queasy with banalities. John Franklin, who also co-wrote the script, doesn't do much beyond what he did in the first film. Sure, he issues the usual biblical mumbo jumbo pronouncements to adoring audiences, but his middle age mug and rougher voice tell us this isn't the Isaac we remember from the first film. Is it possible for the chief apostle of a demon to collect Social Security checks, particularly when said demon makes it a point to hype the virtues of youth? Like I wrote earlier, there are more questions here than answers. By the time the film shudders to a halt, all I could bring myself to praise was the gore, and there is precious little of that floating around compared to other entries in the series.

The DVD contains no extras, which is just as well because that would require the viewer to spend more time with this no account film. I suggest you skip, forget, overlook, reject, condemn, avoid, cast off, jettison, exile, dump, burn, pass over, disregard, denounce, discard, and abandon "Children of the Corn 666" as quickly as possible. Rearrange your sock drawer, change the furnace filters in your house, or reattach those plastic thingies to your shoelaces--do anything you can think of to avoid this atrocity. If you must see it, good luck and may god be with you.

Excellent; Twenty Times Better Than I Expected.......2004-12-18

To be honest, I rented this out of sheer desperation a couple of years ago, having seen virtually every other horror movie for rent in town (this was before everybody started stocking a dozen new horror titles a month, a welcome development). I'd seen 2 or 3 of the earlier installments and not been impressed and given up on the series. I'm not trying to bash them, I know alot of people really love the whole series, but the original and the first sequel just didn't do anything for me personally. I'm not sure whether I even saw "Urban Harvest" or not - I guess I couldn't have cared for it too much if I did. But I took a chance on this one, breaking my own rule of Never skipping ahead in a series (3, 4 and 5 weren't available) and was certainly glad I did.

Very few times have I gone into a movie with such low expectations and been so totally blown away in surprise. "Children Of The Corn 666: Isaac's Return" is an absolute treasure find! It involves a young woman in search of her past and ending up in the farm town central to the series, notorious for events that happened there previously. The town's cult of children are apparantly in remission, maintaining a facade of normalcy in a community where adults now live as well, the children of the cult biding their time and waiting for some kind of promised dark messiah. I don't really know how closely this fits into the overall series continuity; after seeing this I decided to see all the other chapters but have only seen the follow-up, "Revelation", a good movie but not on par with this one and quite unconnected to it. The previous chapters can't be found for rent and I've already decided I'm going to have to eventually buy them sight unseen (the only reason I haven't done so yet is there are about 500 other movies on my personal 'waiting-to-be-bought' list) but haven't seen them yet, so I don't know if everything fits together or not.

A soaring high point of the movie is a romantic angle which I won't go into too much here, occuring as it does later in the movie. It includes one tremendously sexy scene that achieves its appeal not by being especially overt (not that I'm opposed to other, more openly sexy scenes in different movies), but through the high romanticism and beautiful tenderness. And yes, the female character's limited clothing in the scene certainly doesn't hurt things either, although it would have been gorgeous even without that added benefit.

Intelligent, suspenseful, and well-acted, this is highly recommended for either longtime fans of the series or those who (like me) never were into it before. I might even give the original another try someday and see if there's something there I missed. My only grievance is the ending - this isn't giving anything away, but it could have gone in either of two directions and I would have preferred the road they didn't take. That's purely subjective and doesn't mean the final minutes weren't just as well realized as the rest of the movie. I hope there's a direct followup to this entry with the same characters - the next sequel was a totally different path and different people. Still good, but this one is awesome.

Children of the Corn Revelation/Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return

Average customer rating:

The least worthy entries in the series

Children of the Corn Revelation/Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return
Starring: Natalie Ramsey , John Franklin , Paul Popowich , Nancy Allen , and Stacy Keach
Director: Kari Skogland , and Guy Magar
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Children of the Corn 5 - Fields of Terror
Children of the Corn 4 - The Gathering
Children of the Corn 3 - Urban Harvest

ASIN: B000067DH8
Release Date: 2002-07-02

Description

Children Of The Corn 666: Isaac's Return - DVD- With riveting performances from stars John Franklin (CHILDREN OF THE CORN, ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES), Stacy Keach (AMERICAN HISTORY X), and Alix Koromzay (CARRIE II, THE HAUNTING, NIGHTWATCH), ISAAC'S RETURN is the sixth and newest bone-chilling chapter in the thrilling CHILDREN OF THE CORN series! On a trip to find her birth mother, Hannah Martin picks up a dark stranger who kicks off a mysterious chain of events. Little does Hannah know that her journey may help fulfill a sinister prophecy made 19 years earlier by Isaac, the cult's original evil leader! It's a hair-raising movie event you don't want to miss as Isaac makes his terrifying return and the frightening Children Of The Corn achieve their ultimate destiny! Children Of The Corn: Revelation - DVD -Based on the chilling story CHILDREN OF THE CORN by Stephen King, REVELATION is the next shocking chapter in this ever-popular series of suspense thrillers! When calls to her eccentric grandmother go unanswered, Jamie Lowell is shocked to discover that her grandmother's last known address is a condemned tenement building overrun by uncontrolled children! But as Jamie slowly uncovers the truth behind her grandmother's mysterious disappearance, she merely disturbs a powerful evil that now seeks to destroy Jamie as well!

Customer Reviews:

The least worthy entries in the series.......2004-12-27

No other author in recent memory has had as much consistent success selling books as Stephen King. For roughly three decades the Maine writer churned out book after book, each one selling more and more copies. He's a world unto himself, the lucky fellow! He's so successful that he could throw out his pens, put away his typewriters, bury his word processor six feet under, never write another word in his life, and STILL have enough money to wallpaper the Great Wall of China five times over. In many respects, it's Stephen King's world and the rest of us are just living in it. But, and this is a gigantic but, an enormous number of metaphysically bad films based on his novels threaten to put a serious dent in his legacy. We all know the good ones, the ones that not only scared audiences stiff but also helped propel King's career to even greater heights. "Carrie" is probably the best example, followed by "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Dead Zone." These are wonderful, magical films that one can watch again and again without wearying of them. Then there are the rest: the truly wretched refuse that reminds one of dental plaque or the junk that washes up on the shores of a filthy river. Welcome to the Children of the Corn franchise.

"Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return" introduces us to Hannah (Natalie Ramsey), a young lady heading back to the now infamous Gatlin, Nebraska in order to answer some important personal questions: why am I drawn to a town out in the sticks? Who is my mother and where is she? Will accepting this role in a schlock, straight to video clunker enhance my career opportunities? You can quickly grasp the metaphysical importance of such ponderings. In quick succession, Hannah runs into a string of problems. Pushy town cop Cora (Alix Koromzay) gives her sass before she even arrives in town. Doc Michaels (Stacy Keach), the town quack, insists on imprinting his own weird impressions on the girl. But the most bizarre occurrence confronting Hannah during her first visit to Gatlin is the sight of a short man hooked up to a slew of machines in a hospital. This figure is none other than Isaac (John Franklin), the original apostle of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" in the first film. Apparently, the boyish preacher did not perish at the end of "Children of the Corn," although it sure looked like it then, but slipped into a deep coma that has rendered him helpless for all these years. The arrival of Hannah, however, fulfills an old prophecy that will see Isaac out of his coma and possibly bring about a reemergence of the corn demon.

"Children of the Corn 7: Revelation" is apparently the end of the road (row?) for one of the most unlikely horror film franchises in history. Once again, another hapless female falls prey to the malevolent corn cult and its evil machinations. On this outing the individual in question is Jamie (Claudette Mink), a young professional who heads to the Midwest to check up on her ailing grandmother at Hampton Arms, a condemned structure housing a host of miscreants and other assorted characters. Grandma disappears immediately before Jamie arrives at the building, so the young lady decides to stay in the old woman's apartment in an effort to discover the causes of the disappearance. Jamie runs into a lot of opposition to her various inquiries right from the start. Armbrister (Kyle Cassidy), a cop at the police station, initially doesn't take her missing person's report seriously. A visit to a few of the neighbors in the building doesn't pan out at first, either. The resident stoner Jerry (Troy Yorke) is so out of it an a regular basis that he couldn't tell Jamie what time it is let alone what happened to her grandmother. Then there is Tiffany (Crystal Lowe), a woman who works at the local gentleman's club, who is friendly but generally unable to help. What happened to grandma? Lots of bodies and a few "revelations" help explain the whole thing.

"Children of the Corn 666" is such a mess of a film that it easily ranks as the worst entry in the franchise. So many characters parade past the screen, from Gabriel (Paul Popowich) to Jake (William Prael) to a dozen others that it's impossible to keep it all straight. Only the presence of the attractive Natalie Ramsey and the very gorgeous Sydney Bennet in the role of cranky Morgan help keep this film down on stomachs made queasy with banalities. John Franklin, who also co-wrote the script, doesn't do much beyond what he did in the first film. Sure, he issues the usual biblical mumbo jumbo pronouncements to adoring audiences, but his middle age mug and rougher voice tell us this isn't the Isaac we remember from the first film. "Children of the Corn 7" is only a tad better. The only memorable scene in this film involves a storekeeper's head sitting in a freezer. This movie spends more time building the characters and trying to imbue the picture with creepy atmosphere, with decidedly mixed results. "Revelation" does give us Michael Ironside in what amounts to a totally useless cameo as a priest investigating the corn cult.

The disc for "666" contains no supplements. Extras for "Revelation" consist of trailers for parts four, five, and six of "Children of the Corn," "Mimic 2," "Dracula 2000," "Halloween: H20," and "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers." Perhaps "Revelation" is a fitting end to the "Children of the Corn" franchise, but the only revelation I received after watching the final two films is that the whole series should have ended much sooner. Never say never again, however, when dealing with a story from Stephen King. The corn cult may yet return!

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