Children of the Corn 3 - Urban Harvest (1994)

An edge-of-your-seat thriller packed with suspense and terror -- you can't miss CHILDREN OF THE CORN III: URBAN HARVEST -- third in the wildly popular CHILDREN OF THE CORN series! Soon after a childless couple adopts a pair of orphaned brothers, it becomes alarmingly clear the boys are much more than they seem! With the immense power to hypnotize schoolmates into mindless followers and destroy any adult opposition, the younger boy continues the frightening campaign of terror that began in CHILDREN OF THE CORN! But there is one person -- his brave older brother -- who can possibly stop the relentless destruction, setting up an awesome final showdown between the powers of good and evil!

Closer to two and a half stars.

While there was a pretty long wait between the original Children of the Corn and its sequel, Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice, the wait for the third film was pretty short. Apparently buoyed by the success of the second film comes this sequel titled Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. It wasn't released all that long after the previous sequel. Given that there are seven films in the Children of the Corn series, the quality of the various sequels is debatable. This particular one, Urban Harvest, isn't so bad.

The soundtrack and opening credits get this film off to a good start. While the setting is mostly based in Chicago, some parts of the movie take place in Gatlin which is where the original movie was based. The premise of this Children of the Corn (COTC, for short) entry is that brothers Eli and Joshua are sent to live with a foster family in Chicago after leaving their previous home in Gatlin. Joshua is the good brother and Eli is his evil counterpart. Before long, Eli uses his skills as a preacher to convince the students at their new school in Chicago to join his cause. There is a lot of murder and mayhem, par for the course in a COTC movie, as the main characters of the story slowly learn who (and what) Eli really is. It is up to the remaining characters to stop Eli but not before making another perilous visit to Gatlin. When it does seem that Eli has been stopped, we are soon to find out that the biggest threat is yet to come.

People have often asked if it is necessary to see the first two Children of the Corn films before watching the third one. Yes and no. Despite the best efforts of the filmmakers to tie Children of the Corn III to the previous installments, there is just no true connection. There is a dream sequence that one of the characters, the school principal, has throughout the movie. He sees murder sequences that occured in the first two movies. I'm unsure if these scenes are the original ones from the first two films or if they are closely reenacted. Either way, the scenes from Children of the Corn and Children of the Corn II that are seen in this film are edited to include the boy preacher Eli Porter, implying he was present during the two movies that came before this, even if the focus was on other characters instead of him. Basically an attempt to slightly rewrite past events. Naturally, this move is a bit of a crock and is supposed to validate Children of the Corn III and Eli's character by suggesting he was there all along. However, even though this movie is unrelated to the first two Children of the Corn films, aside from the cornfields and the connection to Gatlin, I'd suggest watching those two before seeing this one. The other two films give you some background on the whole premise of the series, why the children are so easily controlled and they also help to establish the setting of Gatlin.

The bad things about this movie are that the story is very generic, most of the minor characters are paper thin, the children who fall under Eli's control aren't nearly as menacing as Isaac's & Micah's followers from the two original films and the ending for this third installment is pretty embarrassing to witness. Furthermore, Michael Ensign, as Father Frank Nolan, tends to overact his scenes. Still there is plenty of good. Daniel Cerny, who plays Eli, has great screen presence for a child actor. His lines are memorable and he makes arguably the best leader from the COTC series, living up to the standards set by Isaac (COTC) and Micah (COTC II). Jim Metzler does a good job here as William Porter, Eli and Joshua's adoptive father. The kills are gory but interesting and the special effects aren't bad at all. For a straight-to-video sequel, the script and direction are pretty good. Obviously this isn't a classic of the genre or even a sleeper hit but Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest isn't nearly as bad as some more critical online and print reviews make it out to be. Despite some noticeable flaws and a running time that is far too short (not enough time to build up the story or characters), you will find a movie that is still very watchable. Even if it isn't your cup of tea, which is very possible, the music theme during the credits sounds great and could have easily been used in one of the Omen sequels. Nice stuff there. This movie is recommended to people who enjoyed the various Children of the Corn films. You'll be in familiar territory here. January 18, 2008

Chicago Massacre

''Children of the Corn'' and ''Children of the Corn 2 - Final Sacrifice'', were really the only films the CotC series needed. If it was like that, they could've made Children of the Corn 666 the third movie and made all the other films cable films.

''Children of the Corn 3 - Urban Harvest'' is probably one of the only CotC movies that has the worst CGI Effects. There is a scene were a montser comes out of the corn, killling the children of the corn, and they expect us to think that a puppet is a horrific monster!

Then a girl gets picked up and eaten, which was really a barbie doll ( because the arms and legs don't squirm or anything ).

But other than the lame effects, the plot was kind of off the "Children of the Corn" pattern. I've seen the trailer for this movie before I saw the actual thing, and the trailer made it look so much better.

I live in Chicago, and this film was supposd to be in Chicago. I was scared by this movie one bit. Daniel Cerny ( Eli ) was not too shabby of an actor in this movie. He acted like a pretty creepy kid so I think he was pretty good.

Ron Melendez ( Josh ) is like an adult in this movie, so that is probably why they made him not the evil one.

For the gore in this movie, a guy gets stabbed in the chest with a tiny sickle which is simply but on his shirt. Then Eli just kills the rest of the people with magic ( which is pretty lame ).

CotC 1 & 2 are way better than this one.

3Stars! November 28, 2007

awful junk

I can't believe anyone would think about putting the third Children of the Corn movie on the same level as the original and part 2. Come on, the original was the best, and the second one was really good as well. Part 3 contains cheap, ugly-looking production that doesn't have any scare factor whatsoever. The corn field is inside the city, for crying out loud. How scary can that be?

At least the fourth movie was a bit of an improvement. I would strongly recommend looking into the first two Children of the Corn movies before spending money on this low budget film. That's just my opinion though, and usually I'm wrong. October 22, 2006

SPARE ME THIS CRAPPY GARBEAGE!

I repeat, the original had no room for a sequel. What a waste of film and talent. This stuff is worthless. Enough said. March 20, 2006

Children of the Corn in tha Hood

'Children of the Corn 3' is pretty damn entertaining. Not as good as two, but still superior to the original and well worth watching. It's certainly never effective as a straight horror movie, but it's got plenty of camp appeal and some amusing gore. This one is sorta vaguely related to the original central story, as it's about little creepy Eli and larger, normal Joshua who are adopted brothers. At the films beginning Eli murders his adopted father so they have to move in with a foster family... IN THE CITY!!!!! Eli is some sorta evil corn warlock and he starts killin' people for no particular reason and works on a scheme to feed tainted super-corn to all the world with the unwitting help of their foster father, who is some sort of corn magnate. What's worse, Eli starts preaching at the toughest Catholic school in the hood and starts converting everyone, to create a whole new pack of corn children! That all sounds pretty silly, I'm sure, and it is, but they try to take is seriously, which is nice. Intentionally camp movie do work sometimes, but they can rarely compare to something which was meant to be taken seriously. Though actually, I don't wanna be to hard on it, as it's actually more competent than a lotta films of this caliber. I get the feeling that the director could manage a pretty decent horror movie if he had a decent script and a moderate budget. But this is what we got, and there ain't much they can do with this plot, and the dude who plays Eli just ain't menacing, like Malachi was in the first one. Still, it's pretty awesome, with a nice scarecrow attack, a corncifiction, a big scary corn monster that eats a doll, some computer generated fireballs, a crazy agitated priest, a chick totally melting, a corn-thieving hobo who gets his comeuppance, icky bugs, a scary corn-bible and a glimpse into the mysterious world of international corn trade. If all that hasn't convinced you that you need to see 'Children of the Corn 3', that I don't think it's gonna happen. Also, Charlize Theron has a small role as one of the new Children of the Corn towards the end. Not that I can imagine why you'd care, though it does show how life really can change- in ten years she went all the way from 'Children of the Corn 3' to... ... .... ...'Aeon Flux'. You've come a long way, baby.

Grade: C December 30, 2005

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