Children Of The Corn 3 - Urban Harvest - Nice attempt at a new direction

If you've watched the first two Children of the Corn films, you'll know that they were basically the same plot. In fact, it's pretty hard to make a Children of the Corn film which doesn't revolve around a bunch of `corn-worshiping' kids killing adults in a field.

Here, however, they try to breathe new life into the franchise by changing the setting to Chicago! Gone are the cornfields of small-town America, replaced by - er - cornfields in the middle of a major US city. Yes, two orphans from the original films are relocated to foster parents in Chicago and start planting corn in the back alleys in order to bring the cult of `he who walks behind the rows' to the masses.

It could be terrible. It nearly is. First of all the film is (semi) saved by the lead youngster, who, in my opinion, is the best actor to take on the part of a demonically-possessed psychopath with supernatural powers the series has produced yet. It's kind of worth watching for him alone.

The other (again, I use the word `semi') standout point is the ending. It's weird. Seriously, if you're watching this film and you hate it - fair enough - skip to chapter 15 (I think that's the one before the last) and just watch it from there. It gets totally weird. It's like they've tacked on the ending from another horror movie. If nothing else, I'll bet it gets a laugh out of you!

In short: Children of the Corn (1) was the best and most original. Part 2 was so bad it was laughably brilliant (and my favourite simply because it was so dumb). Part 3 does its best to be different. It succeeds in some places and fails miserably in others. Know that you're never going to get an Oscar-worthy epic with this one.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back