By Kenn Gold

Adaptations of Stephen King’s works seem to follow a certain formula. The movie script undergoes massive plot changes for the big screen, which generally fall very flat with his fans as they change the context of his story.  Then later, someone else chooses to remake the tale, with a script true to the original source material that is much better, and captures the essence of what King must surely have intended.  Donald P. Borchers’s remake of Children of the Corn for SyFy follows that formula with a very literal re-telling of the original King short story, though with a twist, as he was also the producer of the original 1984 theatrical film.  This time around he takes over the writing and directing as well, and the result is satisfying.   It was recently announced by Variety that Dimension Films would be remaking the story, yet again, for the big screen.  Though, it is very hard to see how a better job can be done than this made-for-TV version does at capturing the essence of Stephen King’s short story.

The plot centers on a bickering young couple, Vicki and Burton (Vicky and Burt in the 1984 version) who are traveling through Nebraska, and run over a child standing in the middle of the road.  As the story progresses, they find themselves in the middle of a town where no adults exist, and the children pay homage to an unseen god, ‘He who walk’s behind the rows.”  There is no monster on the screen in this version, which lends to the creepy foreboding that the viewer feels when the corn rows move as the unseen entity walks behind.

In the original telling, the character of Vicky was played by Linda Hamilton of Terminator fame.  In this remake, Vicki is played by sci fi fan favorite, Kandyce McClure (Battlestar Galactica) in a role that is much different than the sweet Dualla that fans are used to, and very different from the character that Hamilton played in 1984.  The movie is relatively short, and moves rapidly towards it culmination, but Kandyce and David Anders (Heroes) play the young couple with an intensity and depth that is straight out of King’s original story, and was missed in the 1984 theatrical release.

Kandyce recently took time out from her activities at the Toronto Film Festival promoting Cole, an independent film she recently finished, to talk about her role and character in the SyFy original film which will be distributed on video by Anchor Bay.  She explores the passion that she felt in playing the character in the way that King intended, and the creepiness and depth of ideas that the film portrays as childhood innocence is perverted into something scary.

MediaBlvd> The last time we talked, you were in Mexico working on Persons Unknown and it was a very early Sunday morning.  Where are you now, and what are you doing?

Kandyce> I’m in Toronto at the moment.  I had a little independent film showing at the film festival, and I was here to support and promote it. 

MediaBlvd>  What was it like playing a character like Vicki that was so different than Dualla or some of the other characters you’ve played?  I don’t know if you’d say she is mean, but maybe just aggressive and bitter in her relationship.

Kandyce> Bitter is definitely a word, and I was trying to give her a bit of range.  She was very different, sort of shrewish.  But I always try to look at characters like that as being quite hurt.  Hurt people hurt other people.  I sought to give her range over the course of the movie.  So there were moments that we saw why these two people were together, and why they did love each other at one point; where they have come from.  But it was a lot of fun!  You got to yell and scream, and be completely out of character.  And I like David so much.  We got on so well, David Anders and I.  It was like cut, and we’d cut out laughing.  Action, and we’d have to be really mean to each other again.  That was kind of funny.

MediaBlvd>  Do you know the back story of what makes her the way she is?  Without giving anything away, there’s one scene where she needs him, and is trying to get his attention but he ignores her until things get bad.

Kandyce> David and I were talking about that.  He’s a Vietnam vet, and part of the conflict between them is that instead of coming home when his tour of duty was ended, Burt had decided to take another year and repeat his tour.  So this is what set Vicki off.  She had this idea that he was going to come home and they were going to live out the rest of their lives in domestic bliss.  And he sort of betrayed her in that way.  But on his end, he is sort of in this zone from Vietnam.  That happens to a lot of veterans that returned from Vietnam.  They really couldn’t reconcile the reality that they came home to, with what it is that they left and were tortured about it, in that their were elements that they actually missed, being in combat; or instincts that they couldn’t shake when they went back to the “real world”. 

MediaBlvd> Did you know David at all before you did this movie?

Kandyce> I didn’t at all.  I looked him up before I got there to know who he was and get some background.  I’d not seen Heroes at the time.  But we got on really quickly and all throughout the time we were there, he was a great sort of ally on the set, on the days when it was long and harder than other days.  But we had a lot of fun.

MediaBlvd> How long did it take to film the movie, and where and when was it filmed?

Kandyce> We were in Iowa for just about a month.  I think we actually had 18 days of shooting, so not a terribly long shoot schedule.  But I’d been there sort of a week prior to starting shooting.  I have an awful sense of time, I have to confess that.  It kind of blurs together.  I know it was September.  I remember arriving in Iowa on September 2, so a little over a year ago.

MediaBlvd> In the original theatrical release, Vicki was played by Linda Hamilton.  Did that play into your thinking at all, with her being such an icon?  I guess she did the role just before she broke big with Terminator.

Kandyce>  Again, another confession, I’d never seen Children of the Corn when it came out in my youth.  So I did rent it, and did watch it.  But I felt that the character of Vicki as I read it in the script was so different to the character that Linda Hamilton played in the original movie.  Our script ran a little closer to Stephen King’s original story where these two people were in conflict, as opposed to the original where they were happy and in love, and on the way to be married and start this life together and that goes awry.  In that way, what she did was an entirely different character and I didn’t’ really look at her performance at all to speak to how I was going to play it. 

MediaBlvd> Did you actually read the original story at some point?

Kandyce> I didn’t actually.  That’s terrible of me!  Sometimes I like to just work with the material I have, especially with remakes and things. I find that even watching the movie, there were parts of it I skipped over.  I just wanted to get a general sense of the tone and the feel of what people were drawing reference from; what they had seen and what they would see.  I like to just focus on what I have and not try to let too many external sources in.  You can get into a lot of thinking sometimes when you are dealing with something that has already been done, or has a number of reference points.  I like to just sort of see what my own ideas are.  Donald  was also a real wealth of information about what the short story was like and the tone of it.  He was drawing quite heavily from the short story in putting together the script.  I relied on him mainly for the real Stephen King references.

MediaBlvd> It seems like the Shining and Salem’s Lot, and other stuff of King’s that’s been re-worked were much closer to the original material in the retellings.  Why do you think this movie needed to be remade? Why did they decide to take Children of the Corn and pull that in as a movie that would be redone for modern audiences?

Kandyce> Again, the telling of it is truer to what Stephen King intended.  I prefer the relationship in the remake to the one I witnessed in the original. Conflict makes for good TV, and it was certainly a lot more fun to play.  For me, it was just a much more interesting part.  Donald had solved the issue of if it was modern day, how was it that these children remained so disconnected?  How was it that they remained in this town without anybody realizing that there were no adults; remaking it as a period piece, putting it back in the late ‘70’s, then to cast us interracially.  I’m not sure if he did that on purpose, or who cares really.  Which is kind of great, since its color blind casting.  But I did think it was a really interesting time and combination between the two of us that will lend a new perspective to what the story is.  I also like what he did in the casting of Preston Bailey as Issac.  Preston, of course, is Dexter’s girlfriend’s young son on that show.  He has such an innocence and vitality about him very naturally as an actor, and as a lovely young boy.  I thought casting him as this crazed, hyper-religious leader was really frightening.  Of course it’s the same for Daniel Newman as well, who plays Malachai.  You can just see this kid turning into some kind of serial killer later on in his life.  But he still has this care and appreciation and love for this younger boy, and this slight rivalry.  There were elements of what I saw in the script that really fascinated me, and I think it will be an interesting combination for a new audience.

MediaBlvd> I have to agree with you.  There is one particular scene that really strikes me with Malachai and a younger boy in the field.  It’s almost a very loving, almost fatherly relationship, and on a dime he switches back and forth from that to his devotion to the god, and the blood lust. I have to say, that was very creepy seeing all of these kids running around with knives and axes.

Kandyce> Yeah, the little blond boy.  It was very disconcerting.  And in the clothes they were wearing; the long dresses and aprons and trousers.  We hired a lot of kids locally from Iowa, and I guess they hadn’t really been in a lot of film sets.  There was no sense of awe about them, about where they were and what they were doing.  They were very laid back, like “Oh, how much longer do we have to sit in this field?”  But I think there is a great naturalness about them in their time and space to have them in these clothes and to put weapons in their hands and have them in this cornfield surrounded by pyres and blood and crucifixes.  The fact that they are so comfortable and natural, just them standing there sometimes, I was like, “Oh no!” And some of them were so sweet faced.  Some of them looked so innocent, so youthful.  It weirded me out sometimes.  And that sense that they don’t think they are doing anything wrong.  The casting of the kids was brilliant.  They are just very naturally walking around going, “There’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.”

MediaBlvd> How was it doing a horror film, compared to the pure sci fi experience of Galactica?

Kandyce> I’ve been wracking up a couple of the horror films.  Children of the Corn last year, and I’m doing another one this year called Mother’s Day from the directors and producers of the Saw movies.  Horror is somewhat more labor intensive, I find.  Galactica was certainly a show about human relationships, and was certainly an emotional show.  For five years, I’ve been playing the relationship I’ve been in.  This is the man that I love, and this is the conflict that we are having.  So you are playing the relationship, and the emotion is inherent in the dialogue that you are having.  I find in horror, that I have to use more of my resources, sensorialy and from my life; kind of hyping up past experiences I have in mind to relive again and again that sense of fear, that feeling of danger, that level of anxiety.  You kind of have to maintain that during the day, and that’s somewhat more exhausting.  There’s also a lot more running; particularly in high heels.  There’s a lot of set up in between takes.  The difference is that on Galactica, you kind of cut then you role right into it.  You reset what you are doing, and you continue to live in that moment and you can go back into the relationship very quickly in between takes.  Whereas I find in the horror films, there is so much blood, and reset five props and put the blood back on, the weapon was in the other hand, are we adding more bruises in this shot?  There is so much of that going on between takes; you have to find a way to find of holding on to the place that you were because it’s such a high emotional tempo a lot of the time.  You have to find a way of maintaining that throughout the day without going a little nutty.  Plus I’ve been doing a lot of running in high heels and short dresses, which never happened on the Galactica! 

MediaBlvd> I think the scene in the movie that gave me the creepiest feeling was your final scene.  And you have some pretty extensive make up on.  How was that?  Was that actually you the whole time, tied up on a crucifix?

Kandyce> That was me the whole time.  I was scaring the little kids that day because I had a face full of latex prosthetic.  I was rigged up to a harness that was suspending me on the cross, and they had to sort of weld my hands into the little loops on the sides to keep me up there.  It was a little uncomfortable I have to say; greasing my hand up with blood paste every time so I could slip my hand in and out of the little not.  I’d never worn that level of prosthetic before, and it’s an interesting sensation to act through.  I do have a bit of dialogue at the end there, where I guess I’m possessed.  It’s sort of interesting because it’s my face.  You can see my face, but for me, I’m behind this mask.  It’s fun because you get to exaggerate the persona you are playing.  But it is definitely the creepiest part of the movie, with the stalks coming out of my eyes.

MediaBlvd> How did they do that?  Was that a mask, or did you have contact lenses that had these pieces attached?

Kandyce> Essentially what they did was make a full face latex prosthetic where there were holes in the eyes.  Then they made separate pieces of latex and attached the corn silk to them, then as part of the setup they would pop the eye pieces into the latex mask and smooth it over and spray me with blood and leave me there.  It was a bit strange.

MediaBlvd> There’s actually a picture of you floating out on the internet sitting in a folding chair.  That to me was the strangest thing, I guess it must have been between takes or something?

Kandyce> Yeah, my legs and arms are sort of akimbo as I’m sitting there in the chair.  I can’t see anything, and even the sound is somewhat dulled because part of the prosthetic goes over my ears.  So there was this very strange sensation of being surrounded by all of these people and a lot of activity.  A lot of the kids were there as well, and some of them were sort of genuinely freaked out by my appearance.  So I sort of put myself off to the side.  But I was sort of cocooned into this little world or prosthetics.  I didn’t want to mess anything up.  I don’t know if you know this or not, but set blood has a high corn syrup content, so it gets quite sticky after awhile.  You can’t put your hand down on things, or it will stay there.  The clothes wrinkle on each other, so I was trying to keep myself camera ready between takes.  But it is a very eerie shot. 

MediaBlvd> From your point of view, why should people watch this movie?  Here it is another adaptation of an old movie.  What is it about this version that would make people want to watch it?

Kandyce> There’s nothing original.  Certainly anything worthwhile watching the first time is going to be made into a remake at some point, re-imagined for a new generation, for societies that have changed, as have people’s perspectives on relationships and on how people get along, and what’s possible in the world.  Those things all change, and things are to be re-imagined for the next generation.  Again, I think there is some really interesting casting in this.  I’m a bigger fan now of Stephen King’s short story.  The fans I’ve spoken too have said sort of the same thing.  And people generally prefer the literature a lot of the time, when things are remade.  There is something that words can do that images and time constraints can’t always convey.  I think there are some really different elements in this story, compared to the original.  It is about this relationship between these two people. It is a lot creepier, I find, with the children.  It’s a lot more haunting.  I love the idea of this thought.  It’s a frightening idea of a generation of youth who feel so let down by what the adults around them are doing with their resources, with their lives, and their future; that they decide to take things into their own hands.  I think there is sort of an interesting question in there, particularly with where we are in the world today.  I meet young people who are so concerned about turning the lights off and recycling.  They are so environmentally aware, and seem very conscious about their future and where they are going to be.  I can see some of them growing up to be quite enraged as teenagers, thinking, “If this is what it means to be an adult, that you don’t really care about where you live, or what’s going to be there for the generation after you, let’s just be rid of you!”  Maybe to be an adult is not the greatest thing in the world, and maybe to never grow up and to retain that vitality.  I always say, “I was so much smarter when I was six.”  That surety of youth.  That is not necessarily what the movie is exploring, but an interesting question that I found myself thinking about in the process of reading it and shooting it.  So yeah, I think there are some interesting elements that are so radically different from the original, that I hope people will take the time to make room for us, as well as the original.  And we are nothing like the nine sequels that spawned from the original.  The original was made to be this Hollywood blockbuster horror movie in the vein of Friday the 13^th and Nightmare on Elm Street that I imagine were bringing in a lot revenue in the ‘80s.  But there was this neat, sort of happy ending in that movie.  It sort of got very neatly tied up in true Hollywood fashion.  But we don’t have that.  There are still questions and things are unresolved.  The relationship between these two people is still quite damaged by the end of the movie.  I like that.  There is not always a happy ending.  Especially in Stephen King.

MediaBlvd> I’d like to shift gears now for a bit.  When we last talked, you said you didn’t know how BSG was going to end, and were going to watch as a fan.  What did you think of the finale?

Kandyce> Yes, and I haven’t actually yet gotten around to it!  Unfortunately, I attended the memorial service of a dear friend and colleague, Harvey Friend, who was our supervising producer and line producer on Galactica, who kept our ship running.  Harvey was much loved on our set by many people among his friends and family.  Part of the memorial service was that somebody had taken video and photographs of the final days of shooting on the set.  And it was a sad occasion and I was in tears in the memory of Harvey.  We really do miss him.  But also seeing visually, those last days and being reminded that I wasn’t there, not even in any kind of performance capacity.  I do understand the end that my character came to, and I think it was absolutely necessary, and as tragic as it is, quite beautiful in the way it was written and the way it was done.  But it reminded me that I’m still so sad not to be there.  I’m still so sad not to have gotten to say goodbye, in a way.  It’s still really fresh and raw for me even though it’s been a little while.  I did try to start watching it, and I’m kind of in tears the whole time.  Maybe I’m just hypersensitive.  It might just be me.  It’s still just so close to home.  I want to see it.  I was at Dragon Con recently, and hearing people talk about it.  I was like, “No, no, no, don’t spoil it!  Don’t ruin it.  It’s going to be so good when I watch it.”  It’s all going to fall in line, and I just know that the performances across the board have consistently been outstanding.  I have my personal favorites that I like to watch on the show. It’s funny.  I’m on the show and I have my favorite characters that I’m looking forward to watching.  But I’m looking forward to it this winter.  I just moved into my new place and pulled my DVD player out of a box yesterday.  It’s going to be a good fall and winter for some Galactica watching. 

 MediaBlvd> Let’s talk about Persons Unknown now.  We got the good news in July that NBC was picking it up. 

Kandyce> Yeah, and that’s the news that I’ve heard, that NBC has picked it up.  I spoke with a couple of the guys over at Fox recently, David Madden and Pancho of course.  They said that NBC loves it, and they’re not changing too much about it- an act break here and there, and scoring it; color correction I’m sure and stuff like that.  But really, as a whole, they are excited about the show.  I’m not really sure they know when it’s going to be, or when it’s going to air.  I really hope that we continue telling the story.  I want to know what happens next, particularly with where we left it.  I’m dying to know what’s happening to these characters and where they end up; what the reveal of the program is, of this all powerful entity that has found us.  I’m really keen to get back to playing Erica and getting my tattoos back on, and running around kicking the hell out of boys.

MediaBlvd> That’s good to hear, and I think answers what was going to be next question.  Over on IMDB for the show they only have you listed with 4 episodes, so I was going to ask if there were going to be early departures?

Kandyce> They only have me in 4 episodes? So far as what I shot, there were no early deaths necessarily.  So I should be in 8 or 9 of them.  The cliffhanger that we shot, I was there on that day.  I’m not in the first 4.

MediaBlvd> I notice you are also doing a voice for Barbie and the Three Musketeers?

Kandyce> Yes, Barbie’s Fashion Fairy Tale.  I love those gigs.  I love doing these little voice over gigs and they are so much fun, particularly with the Barbie Movies.  I got to listen to Ken and Barbie talk.  I recorded that yesterday.  It was actors all over the country and we were patched into from Vancouver and Toronto, and I think LA.  They’re just fun. 

MediaBlvd> And what else do you have going on?

Kandyce> I’m in the middle of shooting a movie called Mother’s Day.  We have Darren Bousman directing, who did the last couple of Saw movies, with Brett Ratner producing.  It’s another remake of a 1980’s horror classic with some slight story changes.  It’s a really exciting cast of actors, and I’m all about the re-imagining of things with slight differences in story.  With Darren having shot the last couple of Saw movies, he certainly has that asthetic down.  Those movies were beautifully shot, with cool transitions and crazy things with camera and sets.  He really knows how to make blood look beautiful.  There will certainly be elements of that. But he is looking to take somewhat of a departure, even from what he has done before in that this movie is more about the relationships between these two people.  We have a really strong, energetic young cast of actors playing these roles. I’m excited to be among them; quite flattered actually.  Rebecca De Mornay is our mother.  And I think she is going to be brilliant.  Jamie King is one of our leads, and we have Shawn Asmore.  It’s just this really excited young group of actors working on this.  I’m actually kind of excited to see it.  We’ve just started shooting and I’ve watched some of the dailys, and I’m not a horror fan, but this is going to be kind of cool.  I’m becoming kind of a remake horror queen. 

And Cole is the film that I’m here at the Toronto International Film Festival promoting.  It’s a Canadian independent film with director, Carl Bessai.  It’s totally different than anything else.  It’s a love story of a sheltered, upper middle class African Canadian girl who doesn’t know much about life and is curious.  She is looking for something more in life and joins this writing class where she meets this guy from the wrong side of the tracks.  He is taking care of his family and they run a gas station.  It’s a beautifully shot touching love story, and I’m really quite proud of it.  We had the premier the other day.  It’s a beautiful sweet little movie.  And this is my first time at the Toronto International Film Festival.  It’s a bit of a party circuit out here.  I’ve got such radically different things coming out at the same time.  It’s going to be hilarious.