This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the “Children Of The Corn”.

That one sheet is something that haunted me.

This was another VHS experience for me, I remember seeing the cover of it at my local video shop and for a cover so simple it still managed to make me avoid picking it up due to the fear it gave me. Goes to show that something simple can be very effective.

Also, knowing this was a Stephen King feature, a man who’s stories had already terrified me, I became even more hesitant to watch it. Because of all this it took me a long time to finally work up the courage to actually finally watch the film.

This was a film that held something of a reputation amongst my age group, whether that was because of the artwork, the Stephen King connection (the name brought fear to many), or even better there was a friend who said they’d seen it already.

Despite being extremely creeped out whilst watching the film it soon became something of a comfort film for me and one that I still find fun to watch. But even now, all these years later, there’s a character in the film that still manages to get under my skin.

‘Malachai’ is that character, Courtney Gains performance in this feature is simply fantastic. His character is so intense and for a kid who was bullied I saw pieces of real life people in him and that really got to me, talk about a well written character.

Did you know that Gains got the role by using a prop knife to hold a casting assistant hostage at the audition. Such a bold move but hey, it worked and you’ve got to admire the confidence. I can only imagine how terrifying it was for the person.

Gains has claimed that one of the great honours of his career is having people, even his son’s friends, recognize him as ‘Malachai’ and confess they found him terrifying. Apparently, even his own parents were greatly unnerved by him in this film.

Of course there’s also ‘Isaac’ played by John Franklin, the guy has a stare that burns through your soul and whilst ‘Malachai’ creeped me out, ‘Isaac’ terrified me. I feel like I could look out of my any window and he’d be right there staring right at me.

Did you know that John Franklin was 24 years old at the time of filming “Children Of The Corn” (Franklin’s small stature is due to him being born with a growth hormone deficiency), this was his first feature film and he’d return to the role 15 years later.

He claimed in an interview that after the film’s release he was at a restaurant and a woman sitting at the next table recognized him as ‘Isaac’ the demonic child preacher. She literally screamed and ran out of the building before coming back in and demanding to have her group moved to another table.

It was also the film that introduced me to the amazing Linda Hamilton (yes I watched “Children Of The Corn” before “The Terminator”). She really showed the range she has, the characters in the two films are chalk and cheese, such polar opposites.

People do seem to forget how good the acting in this feature was. I put this down to the fact that admitedly the film has not aged very well and people remember more of the ropey effects, sadly this was due to the budgetary restraints, a common theme in old King projects.

The film has spawned the most sequels of any Stephen King project, believe it or not there are eleven “Children Of The Corn” films to date which include eight sequels, one remake and one reboot. Unfortunately the quality gets worse as you go on.

There are two quotes that have stuck with me throughout the years from this film, one being “Outlander!”, I just can’t help shout it sometimes. The other one being “He who walks behind the rows”, this one pops up when people ask who somebody is, it’s an issue.

As I stated earlier, this became a comfort movie for me and it still is. Those of us who were around at the time seem to have fond memories of, something of a heartwarming nostalgic feeling. Sure it hasn’t aged well at all, but 40 years on, it’s still an entertaining feature.