Category: Kids Who Kill

As a result of her parents' collegiate participation in a secret government agency-funded medical experiment involving a drug known as Lot Six, Charlie McGee (DREW BARRYMORE) is blessed with the power of pyrokinesis. With the flick of an off-camera fan to blow back her dirty-blonde tresses, our heroine can furrow her brow and incinerate anything in her path. Alas, Charlie is not alone in the freaky parlor tricks department, as her father Andy (DAVID KEITH) is endowed with a rather powerful power of suggestion, something he refers to as "The Push," that enables him to convince people that they are blind, and drain payphones at the airport of change for quick cash. Naturally, the folks at the secret branch of the government behind the Lot Six experiment, aka "The Shop," wants them captured for further study. The first half of the film is nothing more than a drawn out chase which culminates with young Charlie burning the shit out of a pack of Shop agents on the lawn of a farmhouse where she and her father have taken temporary refuge. Undaunted by the loss of countless men, the head of the Shop (MARTIN SHEEN) dispatches John Rainbird, a psychopath with a clip-on ponytail (GEORGE C. SCOTT), to capture the McGees, and the second half of the movie involves the drawn out testing of the father/daughter mutants. Eventually, the pair tries to escape, but only Charlie makes it out after she rains an assortment of fireballs down on the Shop and everyone who works there. Of the numerous Stephen King adaptations, FIRESTARTER is definitely amongst the lesser fare; however the odd, February-November dynamic between GEORGE C. SCOTT and DREW BARRYMORE definitely smolders.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• The flashback where Charlie ignites her mother's (HEATHER LOCKLEAR in too brief a cameo) cooking mitts
• Charlie gives the soldier at the airport a hotfoot
• John Rainbird gleefully describing his plan for disposing of Charlie following the experiments
• The night Charlie burns down the Shop

Those Perry twins sure are a handful. When young Niles and Holland (CHRIS & MARTIN UDVARNOKY) aren't getting into trouble by stealing preserves from Mrs. Rowe, they busy themselves by tormenting fluffy kitties and sneaking into tents at the local carnival. Boys will boys, as their grandmother Ada (UTA HAGEN) is well aware, and she takes a special shine to the congenial twin Niles. Ada teaches young Niles the art of astral projection, or as her people in the old country called it, "The Game." Meanwhile, folks in and around the Perry family start meeting with the most untimely demises. Cousin Ralph impales himself while playing in the barn, and Mrs. Rowe incurs a fatal heart attack after sitting through a rather unimpressive magic act. The twins' mother also careens down the stairs headfirst and is rendered mute and paraplegic. And there is the matter of the newborn that goes missing ala the Lindbergh baby. Grandma Ada knows it wasn't the red-herring handyman, and she knows it could have been only one of the twins. But which one is it…nice Niles or horrible Holland?

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• The "King of the World" landing on the pitchfork
• Holland's failed attempt at baptizing a cat in the family wishing well
• "Holland, where is the baby?"
• The discovery of the baby

 

 Howdy folks, My name is Rynn Jacobs,(JODIE FOSTER)I just killed three people and I could give a flying fig newton. I had no choice really because people don't seem to get that this is MY HOUSE! You see, my terminally ill father took his own life like many a great poet before him, but not before he made a plan to make sure I was well taken care of. We found a beautiful house in a seaside town and he paid the rent up front for three years. At 18 I could do want I want but pops wanted to make sure I didn't have to go to public school where I would be taught by THEM. THEM are those who tell you what life is about so you never really find out for yourself. The first two kills were happy mistakes. My mother showed up one day with her bright red nail polish and it was clear she had "taking over" in mind. As instructed by my father I gave her some tea with a little powder he had prepared. She said it tasted like almonds before she keeled over. The second was the nasty Mrs. Hallet (a begging to be killed ALEXIS SMITH) who stomped in as if she owned the place and never once asked if she might. She found mom's corpse in the cellar and when the cellar door knocked her on the head, she ended up lying right next to her. Don't shed any tears for that one, she was a snobby racist who was always threatening to tell the schoolboard about me. The third was ALL my doing. Mrs. Hallet's son Frank (sleezy MARTIN SHEEN), what a piece of work! I met him on my birthday, Halloween night. It was clear from the get go that he was a pervert. He also tripped my crippled magician confidant Mario (kinderidol SCOTT JACOBY) and killed my pet hamster Ralph by putting a cigarrette out on him! Plus I swear he was trying to cop a feel when he reached into my nightgown to inquire about my key necklace. What really signed the creep's death certificate though was when he found out about my set-up and tried to blackmail me into being "his." THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE don't play that. How's your tea Frank? No, that almond taste is NOT from the cookies! Tell your mom "Rynn says hi, and sorry about the jelly glasses!"

 

 Few child killer movies have cemented themselves as securely in the public's consciousness as THE CHILDREN OF THE CORN. It's become a veritable punchline and the go-to title when describing any group with blind, cult-like followers. The fact that the movie is not nearly as strong as it's reputation hardly matters anymore. A twenty-something PETER HORTON and a pre-TERMINATOR LINDA HAMILTON play a couple who find themselves in the eerie town of Gatlin, Nebraska where the child population has slaughtered the adult population and worships an unseen being called HE WHO WALKS BEHIND THE ROWS. A LOGAN'S RUN type clause in the youngin's new found religion also states that when they turn 19, the children themselves are to be sacrificed to their god in order to prevent future adults. It's a frightening concept, imagine a world where happy meals were the only thing on the menu at McDonalds! There's a lot of missed opportunities visually and the acting, with the definite exception of JOHN FRANKLIN as Isaac and COURTNEY GAINS as Malachi, is patchy at best. In fact you could just credit FRANKLIN's work here as solely responsible for this flicks longevity. He could give little MARJOE GORTNER a run for his money. As shoddy as some of this is, (the special effects near the end are pitiable) CORN is still worthy of a rewatch from time to time. It is based on a STEPHEN KING short story and we all know Uncle Stevie is no slouch in the knowing what scares you department. Regardless of the questionable execution, I think we can all admit that the premise is pretty much fool proof as far as entertainment goes. Just put a sickle in the palm of a child and turn on the camera and I assure you… I've already bought my ticket!

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• Opening coffee shop massacre
• Hamilton comes face to face with "the blue man"
• Horton gets bitch slapped by a stalk of corn
• "OUTLANDER!"

 

 

Preteen television and Broadway vet Patty McCormack garnered Oscar and Golden Globe nods for her portrayal of pint-sized psychopath Rhoda Penmark in Mervyn LeRoy's 1956 flick The Bad Seed. With her father off serving his country in a tight uniform and her melodramatic mother questioning her foundling lineage, towheaded Rhoda passes the time by working on puzzles, promising suggestively to exchange "baskets of kisses for baskets of hugs," beating classmate Ralph Daigle almost to death with her tap shoes, and then drowning him when he fails to fork over a penmanship award that was clearly meant for her. What Rhoda wants, Rhoda gets! The Daigle drowning is actually Rhoda's second kill, and before the movie ends, she disposes of her building's meddling handyman. Think Schneider from One Day at a Time, sans pencil mustache and even perveier. Mother Penmark finally puts two and seven together, and realizes that not only was she adopted, she is also the daughter of some long-dead lady serial killer which, in turn, makes Rhoda the grandchild of the of the same long-dead lady serial killer. Crazy apples don't fall far from the crazy killer tree, and Mother Penmark does what any mother in a similar situation would do after realizing she birthed a monster; she feeds Rhoda an overdose of sleeping pills, and shoots herself in the face. Sadly, murder/suicides are always foiled in movies, and the corpulent landlady who lives upstairs rescues Rhoda. Daddy comes back from war, or whatever gay bar he was frequenting in that tight uniform, and Rhoda sets out in a lightening storm across the Warner Brother's back lot to reclaim that penmanship medal she beat and killed that stupid Daigle kid for. Quite frankly, she earned it in my book; however Mother Nature intervenes and delivers the swift justice Rhoda's mother couldn't muster.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• Eileen Heckart's slurred scenes as grieving mother Hortense Daigle
• The two-tiered Penmark family bar cart. If Unkle Lancifer & I ever get married, I am sticking seven of those things on my registry. I want one for every room, even the bathroom
• Rhoda's "G-I-V-E-M-E-M-Y-S-H-O-E-S" confrontation under the arbor with handyman/perv Leroy Jessup
• "They don't put little girls in the electric chair!"