Oh the humanity! . No other author in recent memory has had as much consistent success selling books as Stephen King. For roughly three decades the Maine writer churned out book after book, each one selling more and more copies. He's a world unto himself, the lucky fellow! He's so successful that he could throw out his pens, put away his typewriters, bury his word processor six feet under, never write another word in his life, and STILL have enough money to wallpaper the Great Wall of China five times over. In many respects, it's Stephen King's world and the rest of us are just living in it. But, and this is a gigantic but, an enormous number of metaphysically bad films based on his novels threaten to put a serious dent in his legacy. We all know the good ones, the ones that not only scared audiences stiff but also helped propel King's career to even greater heights. "Carrie" is probably the best example, followed by "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Dead Zone." These are wonderful, magical films that one can watch again and again without wearying of them. Then there are the rest: the truly wretched refuse that reminds one of dental plaque or the junk that washes up on the shores of a filthy river. Welcome to the Children of the Corn franchise.    "Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return" introduces us to Hannah (Natalie Ramsey), a young lady heading back to the now infamous Gatlin, Nebraska in order to answer some important personal questions: why am I drawn to a town out in the sticks? Who is my mother and where is she? Will accepting this role in a schlock, straight to video clunker enhance my career opportunities? You can quickly grasp the metaphysical importance of such ponderings. In quick succession, Hannah runs into a string of problems. Pushy town cop Cora (Alix Koromzay) gives her sass before she even arrives in town. Doc Michaels (Stacy Keach), the town quack, insists on imprinting his own weird impressions on the girl. But the most bizarre occurrence confronting Hannah during her first visit to Gatlin is the sight of a short man hooked up to a slew of machines in a hospital. This figure is none other than Isaac (John Franklin), the original apostle of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" in the first film. Apparently, the boyish preacher did not perish at the end of "Children of the Corn," although it sure looked like it then, but slipped into a deep coma that has rendered him helpless for all these years. The arrival of Hannah, however, fulfills an old prophecy that will see Isaac out of his coma and possibly bring about a reemergence of the corn demon.    As "Children of the Corn 666" progresses, not so much in a linear manner but in a serious of jerky fits and starts capable of inducing whiplash in the viewer, more of the "storyline" emerges for our consumption. It appears that many worshippers of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" survived the Peter Horton induced apocalypse at the end of the first film and grew up. They've been waiting all these years--raising their own children and acting like responsible adults--for Isaac to awaken from his slumber and call forth the demon. Why? I don't know. Since cult members always considered anyone over the age of eighteen the enemy, I can't imagine why grown people would welcome the malevolent corn god with open arms. Wouldn't he just pop up out of the earth and rip every person with age wrinkles and five o'clock shadow into bloody pulp? The whole subplot involving Hannah's reunion with her mother Rachel (Nancy Allen) withers when confronted with fundamental questions the movie refuses to ask, let alone answer. It should go without saying that numerous individuals find the idea of a possible Isaac/corn devil reconciliation an unpalatable situation. These are the people who end up on the wrong end of scythes and other sharp objects.    What we have here is such a mess of a film that it easily ranks as the worst entry in the franchise. So many characters parade past the screen, from Gabriel (Paul Popowich) to Jake (William Prael) to a dozen others that it's impossible to keep it all straight. Only the presence of the attractive Natalie Ramsey and the very gorgeous Sydney Bennet in the role of cranky Morgan help keep this film down on stomachs made queasy with banalities. John Franklin, who also co-wrote the script, doesn't do much beyond what he did in the first film. Sure, he issues the usual biblical mumbo jumbo pronouncements to adoring audiences, but his middle age mug and rougher voice tell us this isn't the Isaac we remember from the first film. Is it possible for the chief apostle of a demon to collect Social Security checks, particularly when said demon makes it a point to hype the virtues of youth? Like I wrote earlier, there are more questions here than answers. By the time the film shudders to a halt, all I could bring myself to praise was the gore, and there is precious little of that floating around compared to other entries in the series.    The DVD contains no extras, which is just as well because that would require the viewer to spend more time with this no account film. I suggest you skip, forget, overlook, reject, condemn, avoid, cast off, jettison, exile, dump, burn, pass over, disregard, denounce, discard, and abandon "Children of the Corn 666" as quickly as possible. Rearrange your sock drawer, change the furnace filters in your house, or reattach those plastic thingies to your shoelaces--do anything you can think of to avoid this atrocity. If you must see it, good luck and may god be with you.
Output: NEG