I will admit: I didn't have high hopes for the newest Children of the Corn film, an apparent remake of the 1984 classic horror film. Based on the Stephen King short story of the same name, the new film is directed by Kurt Wimmer (2015's Point Break). Despite the fact that it premiered at a Florida film festival in 2020, it wasn't picked up for release until 2023. But the new take on Children of the Corn turned out to be a surprisingly satisfying slasher.

The film opens in a Rylstone, Nebraska, orphanage. Eden, a young charge, greets another kid who wanders out of a cornfield. He picks up a big knife off a table, goes inside, and starts killing the adults. When even the authorities can't stop him, they come in with a cow tranquilizer and gas everyone inside. Eden is the only survivor of the slaughter, having wandered into the corn, where she spent nearly a week before the authorities found her. She's then "adopted" by the town pastor.

Sometime later, the surviving adults meet to discuss an offer from "big corn" to grow GMO corn, loaded with pesticides and other chemicals that ruin their crops. From there, the town has no choice but to take part in a subsidy to not grow corn. When the kids' opinions on the matter are rejected, some of the older teens plan a public shaming, invite a journalist to town, and plan on holding a sham "trial." The journalist doesn't arrive, and when the older teens arrive, Eden has already killed some of the adults. The rest are imprisoned, only to be gassed like earlier, and transferred to a pit in the cornfields, where they are buried alive. Things only get wilder from there.