Anyway, the story starts off with a hell of a massacre in a little coffee shop in the rinky-dink town of Gatlin, Nebraska. As a creepy child preacher watches through the window all of the children suddenly employ everything from knives to poison in killing all the adults in the whole place. A young boy named Jobe witnesses the massacre, yet is left alive. This happened everywhere in Gatlin that day. All the adults have been slaughtered by the town children under the commandment of the boy preacher named Issac. Isaac has been given what he believes to be direct orders from God himself, by name referred to here as "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". A sentence from the Bible that reads "And a child shall lead them" is one of the supporting ideas for convincing all of the children that adults should not be allowed to live.
After all the adults are killed off, the children form their own society complete with hierarchy and often gather in the cornfield with pitchforks and scythes (chanting "Kill Kill Kill") as they listen to Isaac's preaching and obey every word he says. On the day of the slaughter, Jobe's sister Sarah suddenly acquires a talent for precognition (she sees the future) and often draws pictures that are basically scenes that are soon to happen.
Three years later, Burt and Vicky, a couple traveling through Nebraska get lost amongst its bland back roads that are flanked by nothing but cornfields as far as the eye can see. Suddenly a child stumbles into the middle of the road, and because Vicky and Burt are looking at a map trying to figure out where they are, they don't see him. They hit him at full speed and his bloody mangled body tumbles under the car and comes to rest in the middle of the road. Burt is a doctor and while examining the boy's body, he notices that his throat has been deliberately slit and was probably already dead when he stumbled out onto the road. They put his body in the trunk and go in search of help. By the way, the boy presumably killed on the road (Joseph) was actually murdered shortly before by Malachai, who is sort of the enforcer among the child cult, answering directly to Isaac. Joseph was murdered because he didn't agree with Isaacs's rules and teachings and tried to flee and get help. After Joseph's death, Isaac preaches that "Joseph has fled this happy place because the worship of me is no more upon him, so take you his life and spill his blood, but let not the flesh pollute the corn. Cast him instead upon the road. And so it was done, Joseph the betrayer was cast out".
While trying desperately to find a town, so that they can report Joseph's murder, Burt and Vicky get lost and end up in the barren town of Gatlin, Nebraska. They soon realize that it's a ghost town with the exception of a few mysterious children running around. Because Sarah has the "gift of sight" she is coveted and protected by Isaac, even though she and her brother Jobe are often caught playing which is evidently a big no-no among satanic child cults. "God" has given Isaac the vision that outlanders are to come soon and that these outlanders will be unbelievers and profaners of the holy and must be sacrificed as an offering to please "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". Isaac's vision is confirmed by Sarah's drawing of a car on the road headed toward town.
Burt and Vicky start realizing that this town is definitely strange, but do not yet realize how much danger they're really in. Burt goes to the town hall to look around. He notices biblical graffiti everywhere as well as some disturbingly vandalized religious pictures. While Burt is checking out the town hall, Vicky is accosted by the children, dragged to the cornfield, and tied to a cross in a crucified position.
Since no adults are to be allowed to live, they must offer themselves to "The Lord" on the first day of their 19th year. When a child named Amos turns 19 and has to "leave", Isaac is told that this is the opportune time to offer the blood of the unbelievers (Burt and Vicky). Malachai eventually gets sick of worshipping Isaac and decides that he can deal with the god of hell all on his own. He demands that the children remove Vicky from the cross and put Isaac in her place, then using Vicky as bait, they lure Burt into the cornfield. He fights with Malachai and frees Vicky from the children's grasp as He Who Walks Behind the Rows comes forth as a thundering red cloud presumably to take Amos. Isaac is then taken instead and comes back possessed, and kills Malachai by breaking his neck with his bare hands.
Burt, Vicky, Sarah, and Jobe (who have all sorta bonded by this time because Sarah and Jobe hate having to worship a prick like Isaac) hide in a nearby barn. The rest of the children follow. I guess after seeing so much death and how Isaac was so easily betrayed, they figure that this whole murderous cult thing is no longer for them. The wind rises and billows of flaming clouds fill the sky, "The Lord" is evidently coming forth to take everyone because he's pissed that the sacrifice of the outlanders didn't occur and that the children have seen the truth in that they were deceived by a false god feeding his appetite on the blood of sacrifice.
Before his slaughter, an adult policeman tried to defeat the monster but was killed before he could execute his plan. Jobe tells of a passage from the Bible that the policeman was reading shortly before his murder... "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone and shall be tormented there day and night forever and ever". Jobe also tells that the officer was working with the gasohol still when he was killed by Malachai. Burt makes the connection between the Bible passage and the gasohol... fire! The police officer was gonna burn the field. Burt then painstakingly hooks the gasohol tank to the cornfield sprinkler system which drenches the field in the highly flammable substance. A bottle with a burning rag is thrown into the field and quickly burns it down. Eventually, the fire makes it to where the demon is, and a dazzling performance of his demise is seen, done with rather cheap yet effective practical special effects.
Burt, Vicky, Sarah, and Jobe, make it back to their car which has been vandalized with corn, much like everything else in this creepy little town. Mangled, exhausted, and downright pooped, they have no choice but to try and walk to the nearest town, one that's not so dramatic and hopefully has fewer children. Since Jobe (who was at the coffee shop during the sermon that foretold that every adult was to be killed) and Sarah (who was home in bed with a fever drawing precognitive images) didn't witness the occasion when He Who Walks Behind the Rows made himself known, they, therefore, have no violent tendencies and are seemingly the only children left, Burt and Vicky decide to take them along when escaping the town. We never learn what happened to all the other children, but Sarah and Jobe are somewhat adopted by Burt and Vicky. The End.
I've had to leave many interesting topics and situations out, which are very intricate to the film's many facets and subplots, but I can only divulge so much information, making it possible to keep some surprises when/if you ever get to view this masterpiece. I must mention though that a few things did differ between the short story and the film adaptation. The short story follows the same basic structure as the beginning of the movie but doesn't have such a happy ending. In the short story, Vicky is crucified and has her eyes cut out and Burt is sliced to ribbons by the children shortly after he figures out what has happened with the boy preacher and the blood sacrifices, and suffers a Vietnam flashback experience making him easily caught and then both Burt and Vicky are presented as offerings to the God of Hell. The children then continue to inhabit the town and surrounding cornfield awaiting the next set of outlanders that will be offered to the devil as bloody sacrifices. Stephen King REALLY did not like the change in his original storyline and has since denounced the film entirely. He seemed to hate it mostly because it had a happy ending (of sorts), even though it's widely seen as one of the best adaptations of one of his stories. A remake was made many years later that kept to the original story, but it was universally hated by pretty much everyone. It had truly terrible acting on the part of the children and listening to them recite their lines with such a wooden presentation made the film practically unwatchable. The actors who played Burt and Vicky weren't bad but they bicker endlessly which gets old really fast, even though that's how they really were in the original short story. I think by then the audiences were so used to the movie where Burt and Vicky resolve any differences they may have had in order to survive a terrifying ordeal by working together, just turned people off entirely. I have to mention that in between the original movie and the remake, there exists I think at least 8-10 sequels, each one more horrible than the previous one. But the original will always stand out as a landmark film in how religion can be used to create a very disturbing scenario and the atmosphere of this film is so ominous that you really absorb the emotions of the characters and the dread they feel when the coming of the devil is at hand, brought forth by the hands of children.
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