Colheita Maldita 3: A Colheita Urbana

This third part of the franchise see's two children from the original town massacre adopted and moved to the big city. One takes to his new surroundings well and begins to make friends while his younger brother continues his loyalty to "He who behinds behind the rows"

For a start I was glad of the new setting, however it quickly became apparent that they really weren't going to utilize it.

Eli becomes yet another child preacher and alike those before him is obnoxious and plays his well really well.

The film itself plays out basically exactly as you'd expect. Religion, a few deaths and an "Ultimate showdown" at the end.

Not good, not bad, just more of the same when by all rights it should have been really quite different.

The Good:

Follows on quite well

The Bad:

Nothing exactly stands out

Some ropey sfx at the end

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Corn cross, corn bible, whole things getting a bit corny

This movie is pretty much weird, but the performances were well. Daniel Cerny who plays Eli did a well job. The movie deals with pure evil it seems like. The gore parts are rather weird as well and have no purpose, to me killing people and worshiping a harvest or corn is rather spooky. But since I've seen scary movies this one came out to be rather weird and not so much disturbing just really. I know I say weird a lot in this review, but some of the graphics were weird too. I'm surprised they made a whole bunch of sequels to Children Of The Corn based upon the Stephen King novel "Children Of The Corn".

"Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest" is a somewhat tacky and unnecessary sequel to the moderately successful Stephen King adaptation and its slightly under-rated sequel.

In the film, two youths from Gatlin (the setting of the first two films) are taken in by a yuppie couple in Chicago. The older of the two fits in relatively well, but the younger has plans of his own. Planting a corn field in the abandoned property next door, he creeps out his adoptive parents and eventually converts the entire teenage population to his maze worshipping cult.

Despite a predictable plot that seems to be missing chunks (at what point did Eli win over his peers?), dodgy special effects and wooden performances by its relatively unknown cast, the film is moderately enjoyable for what it is. If you want to see some brutal and over-the-top death scenes committed by vegetation, then "Children of the Corn III" hardly disappoints. Elsewhere, however, the film comes up short, and that's all there really is to it.

The film was dumped in theaters briefly in 1994 before being thrust into complete oblivion, making room for four direct-to-video sequels and a made-for-TV remake. Look closely, and you'll spot Charlize Theron in her very first role as an extra.

People who write about this movie say it's terrible. Man, this movie is a masterpiece compared to all the other Children of the Corn films. This is what the others SHOULD have been like. There are a lot of cheap, "jump"-type scares, but they're more than made up for by the overabundance of surrealistic special effects (check out the suitcase full of worms) and over-the-top, gory death scenes. Sure the plot is stupid, but when has the plot for ANY of the Children of the Corn movies NOT been stupid? This movie is a visual treat for gorehounds. There's a few disturbing dream sequences, a giant demon that looks like a malformed popcorn kernel, limb dismemberment, head impalement, an EXTREMELY graphic decapitation/spinal cord removal, scarecrows made from decomposing bodies with sewn-shut eyes and mouths, a particularly nasty head-melting sequence, eye-gouging by corn stalks, a few split-open, roach-infested heads, and a bloody crucifixtion. Definetely the goriest and most disturbing of the series.

After the disappointing "Children of the Corn II", the 1996 direct-to-video sequel subtitled "Urban Harvest" moves the setting from a rural Midwestern town to the Windy City of Chicago. A change of atmosphere gives the "Children of the Corn" franchise a much-needed boost and this entry is sometimes scary, often imaginative and boasts some unique special effects.

A couple (Jim Metzler and Nancy Lee Grahn) adopt a pair of abandoned teens. The older one (Ron Melendez) is conflicted with his Gatlin, Nebraska past, while the younger one (Daniel Cerny) prepares to recruit an all new batch of followers to resurrect He Who Walks Behind the Rows.

The movie is pretty tense and actually works on many levels... but the finale -- while planned out well -- looks really cheap onscreen and brings about lots of unintentional laughter.

"Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest" is one of the strongest entries in the franchise, and for the first 85 of its 91 minute running time, it proves to be a first-rate thriller.