{"id":10979,"date":"2025-02-01T19:56:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T00:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=10979"},"modified":"2025-02-01T19:56:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T00:56:47","slug":"children-of-the-corn-iii-urban-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/02\/01\/children-of-the-corn-iii-urban-harvest\/","title":{"rendered":"Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest<\/strong> (1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dimension\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (horror violence and gore, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James D.R. Hickox\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dode B. Levenson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Daniel Licht\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gerry Lively\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 12, 1995 (US, DTV)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Daniel Cerny, Ron Melendez, Jim Metzler, Nancy Lee Grahn, Jon Clair, Mari Morrow, Michael Ensign, Yvette Freeman, Duke Stroud, Rance Howard, Rif Hutton, Garvin Funches, Johnny Legend, Brian Peck.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t normally review direct-to-video movies but I think I\u2019ll make an exception with the Children of the Corn movies. The second movie The Final Sacrifice was the last to receive a theatrical release. Starting with Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest<\/strong>, they all went straight to home video. I have to admit, the third movie is pretty good. Director James D.R. Hickox (Detention) transplants the story from the rural towns of Nebraska to the mean streets of Chicago which turns out to be a clever move. Who\u2019s better suited for religious conversion than a bunch of teenage thugs and gang members? It\u2019s against their will but still.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest<\/strong> opens in Gatlin where we meet brothers Eli (Cerny, Demonic Toys) and Joshua (Melendez, The Unborn II). Their father is an abusive, drunken jerk who likes to beat on Joshua. One night, he chases him into the cornfields where he encounters Eli who kills him with some help from He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Like Isaac and Micah before him, Eli is an earthly rep of the entity that calls for blood sacrifices.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Following the death of their only parent, the boys are taken to Chicago where they\u2019re to be adopted by the Porters, William (Metzler, River\u2019s Edge) and Amanda (Grahn, Santa Barbara). Right away, the boys stand out at their new school due to their Amish-like clothing and religious ways. Eli, the younger one, gets upset when he finds out that he and his brother will be in different classes. They\u2019ve never been apart before. It doesn\u2019t take too long for Joshua to start adopting the ways of his classmates while Eli looks on in disapproval. This kid is an evil little guy. He sneaks into the abandoned factory next to his new home to plant corn he brought from home. It grows almost instantly. He uses the corn to turn most of the student body, save for Joshua and his new friends Malcolm (Clair) and Maria (Morrow, How to Be a Player), into his disciples. In doing so, they turn against the principal, Father Frank Nolan (Ensign, Ghostbusters), who knows something\u2019s up but can\u2019t get anybody to believe him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In a subplot that has great possibilities, William discovers Eli\u2019s cornfield and is impressed by how unblemished it is. This particular strain of corn, created by the boys\u2019 father, is impervious to bugs and pesticides and can grow in the worst of soil. Realizing its potential for huge profits, he sets about looking for backers to help him market the corn on a global level. Eli\u2019s sole concern is that children around the world will eat his corn. Yeah, I\u2019ll bet it is!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest<\/strong> has a few cool death scenes. A woman falls backwards and gets her head impaled on a broken pipe. The woman who arranges the boys\u2019 adoption burns to death after she makes a horrifying discovery about Eli. Another person has his head and spine ripped from his body by He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Many kids get killed by He Who Walks Behind the Rows, now seen as a giant monster, in the climax.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Several times, the corn plants come to life and wrap their leaves or branches around the wrists and ankles of potential victims. It\u2019s an idea that was better used in that scene from the original The Evil Dead but it\u2019s still cool. I don\u2019t know the exact budget of Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest<\/strong>, but it can\u2019t be all that high. After all, both of the previous movies were made for under $1 million each. Whatever the cost, the special effects look good. The acting is about what you\u2019d expect meaning not all of it is good. Much of the time, the actors deliver passable performances. Cerny\u2019s angelic face perfectly hides his evil nature. Grahn doesn\u2019t overplay her role as an adoptive mom starting to become unhinged as she realizes one of the boys isn\u2019t right. Ensign hams it up nicely as the priest going insane.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It may not be fine cinema, but Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest<\/strong> is a pretty good horror movie. It has violence and gore. I like that it\u2019s set in a big city. It\u2019s neither creepy nor scary but writer Dode B. Levenson has some decent story ideas. It\u2019s definitely better than most three-quels. If this is your kind of thing, I say check it out.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dimension\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (horror violence and gore, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James D.R. Hickox\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dode B. Levenson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Daniel Licht\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gerry Lively\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 12, 1995 (US, DTV)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Daniel Cerny, Ron Melendez, Jim Metzler, Nancy Lee Grahn, Jon Clair, Mari Morrow, Michael […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Children-of-the-Corn-III-PI.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10979"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11021,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10979\/revisions\/11021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}