New Children of the Corn Reboot Gets R Rating

A new take on Stephen King‘s Children of the Corn wrapped production this past summer, with the new adaptation of the material officially earning an R rating. With some horror fans discouraged by movies that end up with a PG-13 rating, potentially holding back on the terror, this rating will likely relieve fans who were apprehensive that the story’s intensity would be restrained. The story was originally adapted for a film in 1984 and, while that film’s firsts sequel landed in theaters, all subsequent installments have debuted on video services, the most recent of which being 2018’s Children of the Corn: Runaway.

The new Children of the Corn earns its rating due to “violence and bloody images,” according to FilmRatings.com.

Stephen King’s official website describes the original short story, “Burt and Vicky are traveling through Nebraska on their way to California on a vacation meant to save their failing marriage. After being involved in an accident in which they run over a young boy who ran into the road, they take the body to Gaitlin, a small isolated community nearby. The story centers on their encounters with the strange citizens of Gaitlin and the entity they call ‘He Who Walks Behind the Rows.’”

The new film stars Elena Kampouris, Kate Moyer, Callan Mulvey, and Bruce Spence.

When this production wrapped, producer Lucas Foster shared with Variety that this version of the story has “almost nothing to do with” the 1984 adaptation. “We went back to the [King] story and free-associated from there,” the filmmaker clarified.

King stories have dominated the world of horror for decades, which includes adaptations of his stories being developed. A more recent trend in Hollywood is to take projects of his that have already been adapted and put new spins on them. The author himself often appreciates new approaches to the subject matter, with King sharing in 2016 that he enjoyed the 1984 take on the narrative but that he wasn’t as much a fan of that project’s many sequels.

“I guess there are a number of pictures that I feel like, a little bit like, yuck,” King shared with Deadline. “There’s one, Graveyard Shift, that was made in the ’80s. Just kind of a quick exploitation picture. I could do without all of the Children of the Corn sequels. I actually like the original pretty well. I thought they did a pretty good job on that. Of the smaller pictures, the best one is probably Cujo, with Dee Wallace.”

Stay tuned for details on the new Children of the Corn.

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