Why Children of the Corn Needed The Short Story's Dark Original Ending
The Stephen King short story Children of the Corn has a brutal original ending that the movie adaptation should have kept. Stephen King may be a horror icon, but not all of his stories have an easy journey from page to screen. Whether it is changing the vampiric villains of Salem’s Lot into mute bloodsuckers or reimagining the appearance of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, filmmakers tasked with bringing King’s literary nightmares to life have always taken creative liberties with the author’s work.
In some cases, these changes improve the work in question. Few fans of director Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining adaptation bemoaned the movie’s lack of sentient topiaries, and many fans of the novel It were relieved when its infamous “sewer scene” was absent from both the movie and miniseries adaptations. However, sometimes King’s adaptations miss the mark badly when it comes to changing their source stories, as proven by the movie version of Children of the Corn.
Related: Why It's The Wrong Time For 2021's Children Of The Corn Reboot
Released in 1984, the movie adaptation of Children of the Corn failed to recapture the creepy atmosphere and nightmarish tone of the original Stephen King short story from the collection Night Shift. Part of the problem was Children of the Corn’s failure to keep the shocking ending of King’s story intact, an issue that was understandable but resulted in a much milder, less effective horror. Admittedly, killing off both of the story’s heroes was a pretty brutal way for King’s tale to wrap up proceedings, but there are numerous reasons that the Children of the Corn movie adaptation should have kept the story’s original ending.
The basic buildup of Children of the Corn’s original short story and its later
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