Late Night Classics – Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror
I can’t think of anything more vapid than watching Sarah Connor and the dude from thirtysomething driving around cornfields for the good chunk of the running time of 1984′s Children of the Corn. I’m sorry but Malachai (Courtney Gains) yelling “Outlander!” doesn’t make fine art. Astonishingly, a majority of the sequels in the series have been pretty damn entertaining and a gas to watch. One of them being Ethan Wiley’s Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror, which was his first directing assignment since House II: The Second Story.
Jason Bene: Personally, I felt Children of the Corn was tepid and overrated. It is one of the few series’ where most of the sequels outshine the original. When Tom McLoughlin sat down to write and director Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, he watched all the prior films to see what worked and what didn’t. How did you jump into Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror?
Ethan Wiley: I’d seen the original, but have to confess I hadn’t followed the series. So I did the same thing as Tom, sat down and did a marathon viewing… more so I wouldn’t pitch Miramax something that had already been done. And I read the original short story, which is extremely short. I had already been fascinated by cults and the symbiotic relationship between guru and flock. And so my take was to approach Children of the Corn V as if it were a “real” cult and try to get back to the basic concept of the story, rather than go very far afield. So I didn’t pitch them Children of the Corn in SPACE! (Just teasing my friend Jim Isaac, who was 2nd unit director on Children of the Corn V!) Because of the success of Scream, they wanted to have a group of 20-somethings get into the action so I worked with that concept.
When I met Bob Weinstein at his hotel suite at The Peninsula in Beverly Hills, he said, “I’m on a plane to Cannes in 15 minutes. Shoot!” So I quickly pitched my take on the movie, he seemed very abrupt and disinterested, and then I was kicked out of the room. I talked to my agent after and told her I thought it was a total disaster. Later she calls me back and says, “He loved you, you got the job!” So then I write the script, send it into Miramax before the holidays. A week goes by. Then two weeks. Then three
months. And now it’s the next year and I have heard NOTHING. Finally I can’t stand it anymore. I tell my agent to find out for a fact that I’ve been fired and they’re looking for a new writer, just so I can stop worrying about it and move on with my life. Then I get a call for the Exec at Miramax. “Sorry, nobody called you? There was a mix up here. You’ve got a green light and we’re starting pre-production in two weeks.” So sometimes no news is actually good news.
Jason Bene: You decided that “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” would be more of an eternal flame than the crab-like creature that was seen in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. It was like it was a fiery pit from hell that reached out and possessed the children. How much wrestling did you do with what form you wanted it to be?
Ethan Wiley: To be honest, it was mostly a budgetary decision. We had a low budget and most of that budget was going to the union crew and the infrastructure of the movie. Our SFX budget was in the very low five figures as I recall. It was truly pathetic. So I had to come up with something that was more symbolic than literal, and could be achieved through some practical FX and then enhanced with a little animation. In the original story the monster is described very vaguely as some sort of demon, and I’m paraphrasing slightly, “with giant red eyes the size of footballs.” So that didn’t really give me much to work with. So I came up with the concept of this demon from Hell that has crept up through the Earth into a hidden spot in the cornfield and a little boy discovers the flame and is possessed by the demon. Later the young cult leader, Ezekiel, hides the demon in an eternally burning grain silo. That idea came from the fact that grain silos can build up these gases, spontaneously combusted and burn for many months and they have to let it just burn itself out. And then it made sense to have the cult sacrifice the kids by throwing them into a fiery pit when they turn 17, literally being consumed by the demon.
Jason Bene: “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” has always been like a God to the children. You cast David Carradine as a messiah figure named Luke Enright who the kids look up to like a father figure. David Carradine owns in all of his scenes!
Ethan Wiley: Well, that was a subtle comment on how the rules of a cult never apply to the leader. And then later it’s explained, or implied, that Ezekiel, who’s working as a puppet leader for the demon, has essentially possessed the original owner of the farm as his own “puppet” leader in order to give them “legitimacy” with the local community. Luke has legally adopted the kids so social services can’t interfere! I know, I know, we should be talking about the cool “kills” in the movie instead of this pretentious social commentary.
And yes, Carradine was awesome. Everyone was terrified that he was going to be a disaster. I mean, here’s this guy who’s been in 80 movies, has been directed by Scorcese and Hal Ashby and now he’s doing 2 days on Children of the Corn V with me? “Oh, and by the way, David, all you do is sit in a chair and talk.” But he was attempting a comeback and was on his best behavior. Before shooting, I read his autobiography, which is outrageous. We found it in a used bin for $2.99. He wrote it himself and it’s a chronicle, warts and all, of his crazy career. He has a monstrous ego, and he talks about the scores of gorgeous women he bedded, etc. But I liked his brutal honesty in telling his story. He also talked about his music and a band he’d had with his brothers, so I brought my mandolin to the set the first day he was shooting. I went to his trailer, and yes, as I suspected he had a guitar there. So I say, “Hey, I just happen to have my mandolin with me. Let’s jam.” So during lunch we played music in his trailer and then he decided I was all right.
Jason Bene: (Laughs) Thanks to you Eva Mendes is the mega star that she is today. Even in this movie, her very first role, you can see she had the “it” factor. She oozes sexuality. What was she like on-set?
Ethan Wiley: I was really trying to get a little ethnic diversity into the main cast and the Casting Directors somehow found her. Eva is crazy gorgeous in person and gave a great audition. She was a little overwhelmed at first, but she was literally learning how to act on the set. She didn’t have any theater training or anything. But I could tell she had that “something”, beyond her looks. Ironically, when the first few days of dailies came in both the producer and Miramax HATED her. They actually discussed firing her and re-shooting with a new actress. But I fought for her and told them I thought she was going to be a big star. They were sure I had lost my mind. I’m not saying she was going to take an Oscar away from Meryl Streep or anything, but I thought she was doing a damn good job for being so inexperienced. Funny, if you look at the poster, they put her way in the back and put the two guys up front. I tried to convince them to feature Eva, but they don’t listen to the director when it comes to marketing. Later I got the enjoyment of emailing the exec and teasing him: “Guess who Denzel Washington just picked to star in his new movie…”
Jason Bene: You can never go wrong with having Jason Voorhees and “The Hammer” in your picture. Are you a big geeky fan of them like most of us are?
Ethan Wiley: I had already worked with Kane Hodder several times. He was the stunt coordinator of the House movies and had a cameo in House 2. So it was a natural 
to hire him and put him in the movie. He also did the stunt with the burning fireman at the top of the silo. That is an amazing stunt. There’s Kane, going up in flames and I’m standing there thinking to myself, “It was so easy to write ‘fireman bursts into flames’ on a keyboard, and now this guy is risking his life because I had a dumb idea.”
It was Miramax’s idea to cast “The Hammer”. I grew up a Raiders fan so I had to hear all the old stories about his playing days in the NFL. He was totally cool. He and Carradine had so much fun trying to out-scenery-chew each other during their big showdown scene where their heads explode.
Jason Bene: Bob and Harvey Weinstein (Dimension Films) are notorious for tweaking their projects by either changing the title or re-cutting them after test screenings. How did it go for you?
Ethan Wiley: The original title I’d written was Field of Screams. And they almost went for it. But then someone thought it was a little too close to their Scream franchise, so they chose the far less clever title Fields of Terror.
During the shooting they left me totally alone, but yes, in the editing process I got a few notes from Miramax. Nothing too drastic, but their obsession with speed (faster faster faster) forced me to cut out a lot of little moments that helps the movie make more sense. Also that obsession with speed ended up taking out some of the best scares of the movie. We’d have people leaping out of their chairs in the editing room at a scare and then they’d insist that it took too long to get to the scare, speed it up! And then no one would jump out of their chair anymore. The editor Peter Devaney Flanagan was really frustrated and he made me a tape of an earlier cut that is a far better movie. But compared to some of the famous horror stories, overall I had a good relationship with Miramax, the Exec Producer Jeffrey Kurz was great and really supportive. I’m sure every director has those sorts of frustrations and regrets. I know I do with every movie I’ve done.
One final funny story: One day after shooting I called up my wife and said, “I have a confession to make: one of the cast members kissed me today.” She says, “Who, Eva?!!!” I say, “No, David Carradine.” After we were done shooting, he gave me a hug and a “Godfather” style kiss on both cheeks. So, my advice to young directors is: always bring a mandolin to the set… you never know when you’re gonna need it!
Jason Bene
I'm just an average man/ With an average life/ I work from nine to five/ Hey, hell, I pay the price/ All I want is to be left alone/ In my average home/ But why do I always feel/ Like I'm in the twilight zone
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