In the mid-1980s, no freckled, red-haired teenager was safe from the mocking name calling of "Malachai." That whiny, red-headed terror (played by Courtney Gains) and his army of brain-washed children took their small country town of Gatlin, Nebraska by force, under the command of a demonic presence that walks behind the rows in Children of the Corn. Adapted from a Stephen King short story of the same name, the 1984 film's B-horror movie shortcomings have withered in the past 20-plus years to reveal its D-horror movie charm in a genre that's currently saturated in computer-generated effects and remakes.

Burt (Peter Horton) is a medical student hopeful for an internship and looking to do the "right thing" after running over a kid standing in the street while driving down a cornfield-flanked highway. Burt and his damsel-in-distress girlfriend, Vicky (Linda Hamilton), drive to the nearest town for help, but soon find themselves battling a cult that preaches the sins of adulthood and kills anyone over the age of 19. As with any movie with Stephen King source material, there are plenty of character archetypes and religious overtones. Along the way, they meet a crazy old man and his dog, a little girl that draws pictures of the future and the charismatic false prophet Isaac (John Franklin). The characters anchor the film and drive the predictable plot, which plays out by the numbers -- Vicky gets captured, Burt exposes the cult for what it is, and the evil is banished.

That's not to say that Children of the Corn is a bad movie. For longtime fans of horror, it's a breath of nostalgic air. It harkens back to the days when horror filmmaking was simple. There are no cell phone applications to tell what Burt and Vicky to do after mowing down a kid with their car and no GPS units to explain to them that they are driving in circles. There are no pointless distractions. There is only reaction to the horrific moments. And there are some horrific moments -- Isaac's convincing sermon about "He Who Walks Behind The Rows," kids in a corn field chanting "Praise God, Praise the Lord," while brandishing sickles and knives, or Vicky strung up on a cornstalk cross next to a skeleton police officer called "The Blue Man."

It also helps that the movie is steeped in an autumn ambiance. Dried cornstalks sprout from the rundown Midwestern town while shriveled brown leaves blow through the empty streets under an apathetic grey sky. Along with Jonathan Elias' haunting vocal score, Children of the Corn's atmosphere makes childhood nerves bubble up to our desensitized adult surface. As a kid, it was the kind of horror movie you heard about from other kids and were equally nervous and excited to watch. As an older genre fan, you know it's the type of horror movie that doesn't get made anymore. It doesn't pander to an ADD audience with constant scares or snazzy effects. It effectively tells a simple horror story. And its dated look reminds us that horror movies were once made with only a camera and buckets of Karo syrup; not marketable teen models and computer-generated effects.