Bad. Amusingly so, but bad nonetheless. It's crazy that they've made 10+ of these and not one of them has had a decent budget. This remake/reimagining of the 1984 kind of, yet not really classic gender-swaps Isaac and toys around with some classic Stephen King thematic staples such as neglected youth falling prey to an evil entity while their parents are too busy being degenerates to fulfill their maternal and paternal duties. Only unlike IT, rather than showing how this sort of negligence of nurturing can come at the expense of a child’s life the film is more about how the resulting loss of innocence could lead to embittered retaliation against the adults who failed to protect them. Or at least it sort of is… The subtext it looks to be instilling early on is quickly abandoned as the whole thing devolves into the most unintentionally ludicrous adolescent takeover plot I’ve witnessed thus far. You know what one of the factors behind the original CotC’s success is? It’s not solely that the concept of kids killing all the authority figures out in the sticks (Eerrrrr… stalks) is strangely compelling. It’s how that movie largely took place after the slaughter had already occurred. This adaptation however covers the events that transpired when the youngsters decided to purge their small Nebraskan town of everyone old enough to vote, and the results are just ridiculous. Seeing that a gaggle of maybe 15 prepubescents somehow managed to subdue a fairly large group of fully grown men and women, which the movie conveniently skips over the details of, with barely a tweenager among them requires more suspension of disbelief than any of us should be willing to give. It’s one of the aspects, alongside a variety of particularly odd moments such as a scene where a town hall full of middle-aged men spend 5 or so minutes laughing in an overly exaggerated manner at their future murderers like something out of a high school bullying flick for example, that leads to this revamp coming off as inadvertently silly. There’s the occasional decently gory sight and Kate Goyer giving one a heck of a fantastic performance (best onscreen tbh), but it’s not enough to make for an effectual piece of horror in the face of all the goofiness. Plus, they turned “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” into Corn Groot. LOL! While the mix of bizarre, outright crappy directorial decisions and ineffective storytelling can keep you watching in a state of stupefied disbelief, it narrowly misses that trash cinema treasure status which could have moderately redeemed it. So despite a few interesting touches including swapping the stranded traveling couple protagonists of its predecessor out for an otherwise college-bound local teen trying to bring an end to the brutality, we’re left with an update you’re better off skipping. Torch the crops. This season’s harvest is rotten.