16. SEQUELAR SUBTITULAR: You know how sequels sometimes have clever subtitles? Like House II: The Second Story…

Someone tell medical student Grace Rhodes (Naomi Watts) that you should never go home again. Yet she has to take care of her agoraphobic mother, June (Karen Black), who keeps dreaming of being hurt by children. She gets her old job back with Dr. Larson (William Windom) and starts to take care of her much younger siblings, Margaret (Jamie Renée Smith) and James (Mark Sailing).

When every kid in town gets a fever, just like in June’s dreams, and you realize this is set in Grand Island, Nebraska, the birthplace of Dick Cavett, you know something evil is up.

Donald (Brent Jennings) and Sandra (Toni Marsh) Atkins have one of those feverish kids, Marcus (Lewis Flanagan III). Josiah, Brandon Kleyla, a child preacher, gets him to murder his own mother, sending the police after the father, whom they blame. Oh man, Josiah. The dude was like Marjoe Gortne, and as he started to grow, the priests he was with tried to stop his aging. They abandoned him at one point, so he killed them, then the people of Grand Island burned him alive and sealed his remains in a well. So, you know, it’s totally normal that he’s back and giving the kids the names of dead children from a past century.

Somehow, his weakness is mercury, and somehow, this small-town medical student learns how to make mercury bullets. I love it. In a deleted scene, the two old ladies tell Grace and Donald that the children called Josiah “He Who Walks Behind The Rows.” Yeah, we didn’t have continuity, and only nerds cared back then.

U of M grad Steve King said he “could have done without all of the Children of the Corn sequels.” Well, did you say no to the money? Oh, Steve.

As for me, I’m sad when William Windom — Dr. Seth! — gets killed by a strange operating table with a blade on it. Oh yeah, spoiler.

Director Greg Spence also made The Prophecy II.