Horror legend Stephen King recently pitched Children of the Corn Vs Predator, and the crossover movie has a surprising amount of potential. The Children of the Corn movies are something of an anomaly in horror cinema circles. While there are eleven installments in the series, the Children of the Corn movies don’t feature an iconic slasher villain like the Friday the 13th or Halloween franchises, and few fans of the genre would call the movies their favorite horror series.
Part of what makes Children of the Corn a tricky sell is the franchise’s inherently aliening premise. 1984’s original Children of the Corn (which was critically derided despite spawning so many sequels) introduces viewers to the titular cult, a group of murderous children who killed their parents in religious fervor and annexed their remote hometown in the years that followed. While these characters are clearly villains, it is not much fun to see a movie’s hero killing children—which makes Stephen King’s Children of the Corn Vs Predator pitch a potentially fascinating prospect.
Stephen King pitched the horror crossover Children of the Corn Vs Predator on Twitter recently, presumably inspired by the success of the critically acclaimed Predator prequel Prey. While the creepy, but very much mortal Children of the Corn may not seem like a match for the alien bounty hunter, they would outnumber the Predator and have proven to be surprisingly effective killers in numerous Children of the Corn movies so far, overpowering characters who seem like they would easily be able to outsmart some bloodthirsty kids. Thanks to the killer instincts of the Children of the Corn and the relative decency of the Predator (an honorable killer that generally avoids pointless slaughter of innocents for its own sake), Children of the Corn Vs Predator could be a smarter match-up than it seems at first glance.
Why Children of the Corn Vs Predator Would Work
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So far, the Predator has only faced off against the Alien franchise’s lethal Xenomorph and (comparatively) heroic humans onscreen. The human victims of the Predator are generally the movie’s heroes (with a few cartoon-y human villains thrown in for good measure), while the Predator itself is a hunter that doesn’t indulge in the mindless brutality of, for example, the Xenomorph (which indiscriminately kills men, women, and children in most of its movie appearances). In contrast, the Children of the Corn are a killer cult who have picked off countless innocent victims over the years, making them easily as monstrous as the Predator.
Children of the Corn’s creepy, outright villainous characters would seem to be rare victims who viewers would want to see the Predator triumph against. However, that’s not quite true. One of the biggest problems with 1984’s Children of the Corn movie adaptation was that, while the eponymous killers are murderous zealots, they’re also kids. Thus, Children of the Corn Vs Predator would be a unique opportunity for viewers of the dormant horror franchise to rethink where their loyalties lie in the titular face-off. Whether viewers side with the less vicious, but more alien Predator or the less dangerous but more unhinged Children of the Corn, the crossover movie would make both villains more sympathetic than ever before.
