It’s almost time for the Harvest Moon AKA the Corn Moon to rise again! Which means you’re probably in the mood to watch some cornfield horror films again!
If you’ve already watched all 13 horror movies with significant cornfield scenes from HorrorFam.com’s previous list – don’t worry! I’ve got you covered. Here are 16 more cornfield horror films to enjoy during next week’s corn moon:
Dark Harvest (2023)
Dark Harvest hit streaming exactly 14 days after our first list of cornfield horror films and you’d better believe I was facepalming. I could tell from the posters alone that it would’ve been a perfect addition! And I was right.
Set in 1963, Dark Harvest is a little bit of The Purge with a smidge of The Hunger Games with a whole lotta Halloween spirit. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids, but older tweens and teens of all ages will likely dig it.
Every year on Halloween, a pumpkin-headed scarecrow monster named Sawtooth Jack crawls out of a secluded, cursed town’s cornfield and it’s up to the teenage boys of the town to put a stop to it before it reaches the town’s church. The boy who kills Sawtooth Jack gets a brand new car, the ability to leave town (normally impossible for anyone who resides there), and his family gets a new house in the rich side of town with all of their bills taken care of.
My favorite part was when the boys were locked in their rooms without food for three days leading up to Halloween. In real life, three days with ZERO food would be excruciating, but the scene plays so quickly in the film that, as a viewer, it felt like they were only in there for a few hours before they all got MURDEROUSLY hangry. Hilarious. And too relatable.
The monster looks really cool, too! Sawtooth Jack looks like he’s related to Sam from Trick ‘r Treat (2007), sans mask. He does a great job of menacing the teen boys (and one teen girl who snuck into the Hunt!) in the cornfield and on the streets.
Escape the Field (2022)
Escape the Field is Cube in a cornfield — a comparison so acutely accurate that I’d be absolutely flabbergasted if no one’s said it before. It’s an “escape the room” horror story, but in the open air!
Six strangers wake up in the middle of a cornfield with no memory of how they got there. They’ve each been given one object (a lantern, matches, a compass, a knife, etc.) marked with a cryptic symbol. They need to work together, figure out how their objects connect, and solve a series of puzzles to survive. Kind of like playing a Hunt a Killer mystery game but with deadly stakes! Plus, the six strangers may not be alone…?! Uh-oh!
1922 (2017)
Adapted from Stephen King’s novella of the same name, 1922 is about a farmer who convinces his son to help murder his wife (his son’s mother) and then they bury her in their cornfield. It’s bleak and disturbing and gave my own mother nightmares for a couple weeks after we all watched it (oops!).
Things quickly go wrong for the father/son duo as their guilt — and possibly supernatural forces —begins to tear their lives apart. The cornfield is always kinda looming in the background throughout, adding to the overall dread. As we mentioned in our cornfield horror movies list from last year: Stephen King’s got a thing about corn!
The Stand (1994)
Speaking of which, there are a whole TON of cornfield scenes in the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand! The four shown in the collage above aren’t even all of them — there were several more!!
As for the plot of The Stand… it’s a whole thing. This was actually a television miniseries and is a smidge over six hours long so the plot defies brief summaries. For the purposes of it being included in this list of cornfield horror films, here’s what you need to know: In a post-apocalyptic world brought on by a viral outbreak, several survivors all start dreaming of a particular cornfield.
The cornfield is surrounding the home of an important prophet, Mother Abagail. So, all of the other characters need to find their way to the cornfield of their dreams and have the ultimate showdown between good and evil!
Pumpkinhead (1988)
The first Pumpkinhead movie starts out with a whole bunch of credits right up front and is followed by, at minute three, a cornfield (pictured). We’re then treated to a tense scene of a family denying a desperate neighbor admittance into their home as he begs and pleads for sanctuary from a monster that’s after him. Then, there’s a pretty exciting chase through the opening cornfield that showcases some old-school FX work via the title character. Lots of screaming. Then – bam! – shirtless Lance Henriksen working his farm land, looking absolutely jacked like he’s prepping to be a new hero in the Marvel cinematic universe.
After so many unexpected turns, Pumpkinhead kinda goes downhill after that. It struggles to keep the pace and the intrigue of those first few minutes. But that cornfield scene is quite the opening!
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow is another horror film with a significant cornfield scene as the opening! Martin Landau in a 1700’s white powdered wig is having a carriage ride and peeps an awesome-looking pumpkin-headed scarecrow in the cornfield he’s riding past. Then, his carriage driver’s head goes missing! Naturally, this adversely affects the man’s driving abilities so Martin Landau decides to abandon ship…er…carriage…and he dashes through the cornfield, being pursued by something in the darkness.
He makes his way to the aforementioned scarecrow (looking very “Pumpkin King” from A Nightmare Before Christmas) and briefly stops to admire its awesomeness. Big mistake. He loses his head and blood splashes across the scarecrow’s smiling face, much like what happens to the happy face pin at the beginning of Watchmen.
From there, the movie becomes a supernatural serial killer mystery! Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) is a New York City police constable who’s called in to solve a string of murders in Sleepy Hollow (Martin Landau and his carriage driver were just two of many!). Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd… there’s another significant cornfield scene towards the end during a “villain monologuing” flashback that plays a key role in the mystery’s big reveal moment.
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
The Boomers had the Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones, Gen Z had Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, and my generation had Freddy Kreuger vs. Jason Voorhees. This was a BIG deal! Freddy vs. Jason serves as the 8th film in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and the 11th film in the Friday the 13th franchise.
More importantly, for this, Freddy vs. Jason is a significant addition to the ever-growing list of cornfield horror films!
The Freddy and Jason storylines fully converge at a cornfield rave and the teen fodder is memorably mowed down as collateral damage. It’s fun!!
Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
If you watch The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs then you’ve probably already seen Dark Night of the Scarecrow (it was one of the films they showed in season 5). It’s about a gentle, mentally challenged man becoming a murderous scarecrow after being wrongfully killed by a mob. The field he’s murdered in isn’t a cornfield, but there is a significant cornfield scene later on.
Spoilers: Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a whole lotta flat nothin’ in terms of scenery until the last six minutes of the movie when Doc Hopper from The Muppet Movie (playing a truly sleazy mailman with a penchant for little girls) gets what’s coming to him in a dried out old cornfield.
Night of the Scarecrow (1995)
Similar title to the last entry, but other than someone possessing a scarecrow this is a veeeeeeeeeery different movie. For one thing, there’s an extended strobe light scene. I can’t really recommend Night of the Scarecrow to anyone, but its an especially poor pick for members of the horror fam with epilepsy and/or light-induced migraines. (I’m in the latter category and I’m feeling disgruntled. If I have to endure pain, it should at least be for a better movie).
That said, there are MANY cornfield scenes in Night of the Scarecrow including the one shown above with its excessively early 90’s CGI!
As for plot, uh, Night of the Scarecrow is basically about a town that’s cursed because they made a deal with a warlock a long, long time ago in order to end a drought and get some rain for their cornfields. But then the warlock was like, “Now that that’s done, how about we all have a big ol’ orgy?!” and then they did (which also takes up a ludicrously long amount of screentime). But then the townsfolk were like, “Yo. Maybe orgies and witchcraft AREN’T the way to go? We should kill this guy!” And then they did. And it was just them and their corn for a century until the warlock came back as a scarecrow and murdered the decedents of everyone who killed him.
The Maze (2010)
Five young people decide to visit a corn maze together but they dawdle and end up arriving after hours. Undeterred, they enter the maze anyway! And then they decide to play a game of tag, as twenty-somethings are known to do.
Unfortunately for our playful group of slasher fodder, they aren’t the only ones in the cornfield!
It’s a little silly premise-wise, but it’s not bad! I liked that The Maze is only 86 minutes long so it didn’t overstay its welcome and I enjoyed the ending. I could be wrong, but it felt like the people involved actually cared and that goes a long way when it comes to low-budget indie films.
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Return to Oz is definitely the more obvious choice when it comes to horror fantasy films set in the Oz universe; however, just ask anyone over sixty if The Wizard of Oz scared them when they were young if you need validation for its potential “horror” status. A lot of Boomers were traumatized by the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys when The Wizard of Oz was finally televised in the mid-1950s! (It was shown in 1956 and then became an annual television event from 1959 – 1991).
Plus, The Wizard of Oz is the Oz film with a significant cornfield scene! Dorothy meets the Scarecrow in a cornfield, and it serves as the backdrop to the song “If I Only Had a Brain.”
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Speaking of scarecrows, monkeys, and cornfields…
This sci-fi horror nightmare has a very memorable scene where the astronaut main character and his two friends awaken from their suspended animation and exit their spacecraft to explore the new planet they’ve landed on. It was 1972 when they left and its currently 3978, so they’re anxious to see what’s up.
The planet they’re on seems completely barren until they spy some scarecrows in a cornfield. Civilization! They take a dip in a nearby lake, hang with some mute cavemen-type humans, and then… CHIMPS!! Chimps with GUNS!!! This planet is run by apes! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
The main character, his friend, and the other humans try to outrun the apes – weaving through the stalks of corn – but things don’t go well. And it only gets worse from there. I don’t care what anyone else says: The Planet of the Apes (1968) is a horror movie.
Twister (1996)
Twister is also a horror movie, depending on your personal fears! It’s in the disaster movie subgenre of horror, which is one of the horror subgenres that scares me the absolute most. (San Andreas? Scariest movie I’ve seen in years!).
Anyway, Twister is the story of Bill Paxton and his ex-wife hunting down the tornado that killed her pa. Kidding. Kinda. That’s a big part of it, but there’s obviously a bit more to it than that. It’s pretty good! My husband and I rewatched it recently in preparation for seeing its sequel and we enjoyed it. There’s a really fun – terrifying! – scene at a drive-in where an audience is watching The Shining and a twister rips through.
Also, there are a lot of cornfields! It takes place in Oklahoma. One scene in particular has the main duo racing through the corn stalks, trying to escape a vengeful twister!
There’s a similar scene in the sequel, Twisters, but with wheat. Something it has in common with…
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
The Town That Dreaded Sundown is (very) loosely based on the Texarkana Moonlight Murders of 1946. And it’s a period piece set in that year (though everyone still manages to look very 1976).
There’s a killer called The Phantom running around murdering teens every 21 days. He looks like “Baghead” Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th Part 2.
In the film’s most memorable scene, The Phantom chases a vulnerable young lady through a cornfield. It’s the most tense scene of the entire movie. And, much like Twister, the extremely meta 2014 sequel/remake of The Town That Dreaded Sundown essentially recreates this cornfield scene… but with wheat! Weird. (Side Note: Do you want a list of horror movie wheat field scenes? There’s a ton of ’em!).
The Lovely Bones (2009)
This was a hard book to read and an even harder film to watch. Peter Jackson does a great job with the source material, but this is my least favorite of his films (my most favorite is The Frighteners) due to how gut-wrenching it is. However, this supernatural thriller does have a VERY significant cornfield.
Susie Salmon, age 14, is walking home through the cornfield near her house when her creepy pedo neighbor convinces her to come check out the murder hideout he’s built under the stalks. Things go about as well as you’d imagine.
Now a spirit, Susie watches over the various members of her family as they try to navigate the aftermath of her grisly murder. She also has to grapple with her own desires for revenge versus moving on. For an extra layer of suspense, she learns that she not only wasn’t her neighbor’s first victim – her little sister is his next target!
The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)
I’ve seen every episode of The X-Files (twice!) as well as both of the movies. However, for most of my life, The X-Files: Fight the Future AKA the first X-Files movie was the ONLY thing I’d seen from the franchise. And I loved it!! Largely due to THE cornfield scene.
To be honest, quite a few scenes in The X-Files: Fight the Future take place in cornfields, but only one of them really matters: The one where Mulder and Scully discover the cornfield and what its hiding!
There’s aliens and intrigue and body horror and bees. If you haven’t watched the show, not everything in The X-Files: Fight the Future will make sense to you. Does it matter? Not really. It’s still a lot of fun! Plus, there are some great special effects that still hold up over 25 years later. Though watch for Mulder reading a clearly blank newspaper towards the very end. It makes me laugh every time I catch it!
Bonus: The Twilight Zone “It’s a Good Life” (1961; Season 3, Episode 8)
This one’s a little bit of a cheat because it isn’t a cornfield horror film – it’s an episode of a television show – and it also doesn’t show the cornfield in question (except some stock footage over the end credits). However, “It’s a Good Life” is one of the most memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone ever made!
Anthony Freemont, a six-year-old Ohio boy with absurdly overpowered mental abilities, poofs people (and sometimes animals) who disagree with him out of existence by sending them “to the cornfield.” Yikes!
This episode was remade by Joe Dante as his segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). I prefer the original since Bill Mumy’s Anthony is a lot more threatening than Jeremy Licht’s, but the movie version has a Dick Miller cameo (among others!) so that’s pretty rad. I’d vote to watch ’em both!
What Are YOUR Favorite Cornfield Horror Films?
Let me know in the comments what your favorite cornfield horror films are!
Also, could you please tell me whether the field in 10 Cloverfield Lane (pictured) is corn or not? I’d planned to include it on this list as a cornfield horror film due to a memorable scene involving a field of some sort of tall cereal plant… but when I rewatched it for this article I gave myself an eye-ache trying to determine if those stalks were actually corn or not! They’re always slightly out of focus and a bit too far in the distance.
Well, whether that’s a cornfield or not, hopefully you now have MORE than enough cornfield horror films to enjoy during this year’s corn moon! Have fun!!
Images of cornfield horror scenes were obtained via MovieStillsDB, CineMaterial, and fair use/review screenshots. Featured image is two stock photos from Pixabay that Lauren combined to make something new.
