Like the small towns that dot the lonely roads here in Oklahoma, Nebraska is not far off from us. Dusty and decrepit, all the towns really need are many stalks of wilted corn (or wheat) and spiritually inbred children.

Very loosely based on the tight short story by Stephen King, Children of the Corn was made into a movie by now-Oklahoma-based director Fritz Kiersch (interviewed in Flick Attack Movie Arsenal: Book One) in 1984, with many critics then (and today) calling it one the worst King adaptations of all-time.

But I consider Kiersch’s bastardized adaptation to be King’s best movie for the horror screen.

A long time ago, in the rural town of Gatlin, Nebraska, the entire kid community massacred all the adults under the leadership of the diminutive messiah Isaac (John Franklin). Now, a few years later, a young couple — Burt (Peter Horton) and Vicky (Linda Hamilton) – run over a child on the lonely road, with foreboding cornstalks on both sides.

As Burt and Vicky go to town to find answers, they find the children are part of a corn-worshipping blood cult that pays homage to “He Who Walks Behind the Rows,” a demonic force that turns innocent children into bloodthirsty anti-saviors of mankind. As Burt looks for a way out, Vicky is eventually strung on a cornstalk cross at the esoteric deity comes for her. With the children running from the ’84 special effects, the demonically possessed man-child Isaac gives a final stand!

While the personas of Burt and Vicky are fine in their cardboard stock-characters, the teen followers of this dirty deity are simply frightening, especially the ginger-haired fireplug Malachai (Courtney Gains) and, worse, the infernal hayseed Isaac.

I believe this movie is all about Kiersch’s willingness to showcase most of the sacrilegious slaughter on the big screen, even if most of the gore scenes are grossly implied; still, the idea of a community of murderous children will always keep me awake, haunting my dreams since my small-town VHS rental. From a native Texas filmmaker (with, I’m guessing, an Oklahoma background), it seems what rural Oklahoma is actually like: endless miles of ghostly towns with one or two people outside a filling station on a sweaty afternoon, a cult of devil-worshippers behind every curtain.

From the troubled-teen drama Tuff Turf (with James Spader) to the sadomasochist fantasy Gor (with Jack Palance), Kiersch’s low-budget films have been given the Oklahoma Outlander Seal of Approval from the psychotronic fan in all of us, even if we don’t want them. I don’t blame you. —Louis Fowler

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Somewhere around 1984, I got my first video membership. It was a small mom-and-pop store in an even smaller town, with the most eye-catching posters circling my being, relating to mid-80ers like Re-Animator, From Beyond and Ghoulies, for example.

And though I completely forgot about the 1987 movie The Kindred, I will never forget that poster featuring a baby’s bottle with a … slimy thing inside. It still haunts me.

Kindly physician Dr. Lloyd (Rod Steiger) apparently has an evil side, finding accident victims and conducting experiments. While trying to find some “journals” or whatever scientists do with written notes, he inadvertently kills his lab partner.

The deceased lab partner’s son, John (David Allen Brooks), who is also a doctor, is down with his girlfriend and some other students to find the “journals” on the experiment. Meanwhile, as John’s dog waits on the porch, a slimy thing breaks out of the cellar, eating him.

As all parties converge in the near-creepy house, slimy things get in through people’s skin, rooting around in the body and creating a new quasi-lifeform. It doesn’t make much sense, but it does have Oscar winner Steiger consumed by the monster, so that’s something!

But most of the movie is quite forgettable. I even forgot that Max Headroom’s Amanda Pays plays a mysterious scientist. She’s quite good in the thankless role, more than the movie deserves. But as far as I can see, this tale of science amok is, like the experiments, pretty half-baked.

I still like that poster, though. —Louis Fowler

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Released under a myriad of titles — Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Don’t Open the Window and so on — the Spanish-Italian film The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue calls itself a comedy, but in the 44 years of watching subpar movies, I never thought it was a comedy. Boring, maybe … but a comedy? I don’t think so.

As the swinging, swanky theme plays, a buxom lass flashes her wares to no one in particular. I don’t know who that is or what they want, but that’s replaced with chemical runoff, overflowing trash bags and a stiff upper lip. I guess it’s an ecological film now?

After a fender bender with with Edna (Cristina Galbó), George (Ray Lovelock) hitches a ride with her to the English town of Windermere. While asking for roadside directions, some of the local farmers are testing some machinery utilizing sound waves. It wakes the dead and, thank God, one of the character’s heroin habit. Yeah.

Meanwhile, the inspector (Arthur Kennedy) has some serious anger issues that should be dealt with, until he is barely strangled in the finale.

With the exception of a few well-executed zombie designs, this tries to be five or six films and, as we learn, Manchester Morgue can barely get one off the ground. The mixing of ecological themes, zombie dirges, police procedurals, ill-fated drug drama, British sex comedy and some sort of weird ritual to revive the dead via their eyelids, it is too much.

I did like the randy breasts, though. Pip-pip, my good sir! —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.