Children of the Corn

Gatlin, Nebraska is an agricultural community surrounded by huge cornfields. When the corn crop fails one year, the townsfolk turn to prayer to ensure a successful harvest. However, nine-year-old Isaac Chroner takes all of the Gatlin children into the cornfields and indoctrinates them into a religious cult based around a bloodthirsty deity called "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". Isaac and his subordinate Malachai Boardman lead the children in a revolution, murdering all of the adults in town as human sacrifices. Siblings Job and Sarah Gilman are uninvolved in the sacrifices, having not attended the meetings with the other children. Three years later, Vicky Baxter and her husband Burt Stanton travel through rural Nebraska on their way to Seattle, where Burt will start work as a physician. A young boy named Joseph tries to flee Gatlin but is attacked in the corn; he stumbles out into the road and Burt accidentally runs over him. However, Burt discovers that his throat was cut beforehand. Searching for help, the couple finds Chester Diehl, an elderly mechanic and the last adult in Gatlin. He refuses them service, as he has agreed to supply the children with fuel in exchange for his life. Malachai breaks the pact and murders him after Diehl tries to steer the couple away from Gatlin. Vicky and Burt explore the abandoned town and find Sarah alone in a house. Malachai and his followers capture Vicky and take her to the cornfield, where they place her on a cross to be sacrificed. Burt enters the church, where a congregation of children led by a girl named Rachel Stigman are performing a cultural birthday ritual for Amos Deigan by drinking his blood from a pentagram-shaped cut on his body. Amos has turned 18, so is considered old enough for his "passing"—joining their god in the cornfield. Rachel stabs Burt, who is rescued by Job. They hide in a fallout shelter with Sarah. Isaac scolds Malachai for killing Diehl, their only source of fuel. Malachai takes over, tired of Isaac's preaching, and orders Isaac to be sacrificed instead of Vicky. Isaac warns that sacrificing him will break their pact with He Who Walks Behind the Rows and the children will be punished. That night, Burt sneaks into the cornfield to rescue Vicky. During Isaac's sacrifice, a supernatural light appears and devours him. Burt overpowers Malachai and convinces the children to abandon the cult and run. Suddenly, the walking corpse of Isaac returns to punish Malachai. Informing him in a demonic voice that "He wants you, too", Isaac kills Malachai by choking him and breaking his neck. A storm appears, and Burt and Vicky shelter the children in a barn. Reading from Job's Bible, Vicky realizes that the cornfield must be destroyed by fire in order to stop the false god. Burt tosses a Molotov cocktail into the field, setting it alight and destroying the demon along with Isaac. The couple returns to the car with Job and Sarah to leave Gatlin, but find it disabled. Rachel attacks Burt, but Vicky knocks her out and they depart with the children on foot.