Children of the Corn: Runaway is a movie that no one really asked for and that no one will really notice. Despite looking somewhat decent story problems and pacing issues persists that sink this movie before it can even set sail.
I’m going to start off by being blunt, this movie was just boring. Bad and boring. It features awkward pacing and poor writing that was just an absolute drag to sit through. The story revolves around Ruth (Marci Miller) and her son Aaron (Jake Ryan Scott) as they live a life on the run from the evil that possessed the cult in the original film. Eventually they settle down in a small town where Ruth gets a job working as a mechanic under a shop manager by the name of Carl (Lynn Andrews III). Eventually Ruth tries to get Aaron enrolled in school but is turned down despite her best attempts to give her son a normal life. While all this is going on Ruth seems to have visions of terrible things happening to people in the town she is currently residing in. You are led to believe that she suffers from some sort of craziness.
Ruth also comes across a creepy little girl in a yellow dress (Sara Moore), and her mental situation begins to deteriorate as more people begin to die in the town. Eventually Ruth enlists the help of a local waitress, Sarah (Mary Kathryn Bryant), to help her as she realizes what she must attempt to do to stop the evil she is fighting against.
Where to start, where to start with this one…Well the above story is flimsy at best. Whatever the film wants to you feel it fails at this. This is, I believe, because of the awkward pacing. We start the film with some scene thirteen years prior to the events of the main acts, then each action progresses with little narrative strength. For example, out of nowhere a love connection appears between Ruth and Carl, and it begins and ends over the course of two maybe three scenes, and literally comes out of nowhere. It is unnecessary and takes away from whatever the core conflict of the story is, which at this point of the film even I was left wondering what that was. I was just not on the same page with whatever was going on.
The acting does little to help this movie out. I think that they gave actual effort to this film, but that they were poorly poorly miscast. Marci Miller just didn’t fit the Sarah Connors type character they want you to think she is. This film is also extremely predictable. Not bragging, but I called out the two “twists,” that came in the films attempt at a third act. This could be because I have seen a lot of horror films, but I think that anyone regardless of their movie watching history would be able to see these things coming at them like a freight train. I will say that the movie does look pretty. The set pieces are nice, and the actual filming of the movie was done well enough, but the plot and acting issues are too much to make up for.
Ultimately, we are left with a movie that like many B-List horror films, has a decent enough premise, but for whatever reason when they put this into action it just all crumbles and falls apart. It is a tragic epidemic that plagues low-budget horror movies, and if someone could find the cure for it we would have some amazing films on our hands.
