“Bring him the blood of the outlanders!": Children of the corn as farm crisis horror

Abstract

This chapter analyzes Children of the Corn (1984) as a critical response to the US Farm Crisis, a dark period in the history of agriculture. Constituted by compounding political, economic, and environmental shocks the Farm Crisis devastated the Midwestern corn belt and ushered in significant shifts in the US food system. Extending tropes common to the rural slasher and plant horror genres, Children of the Corn re-presents the trauma of the Farm Crisis, exposing the most damaging impacts of neoliberal agripolitics. Through its depictions of a deserted farm town and villainous food crop, I argue, the film articulates not only the hegemony of surplus cultivation but also an industrialized food system centered around corn.