"Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice" is pretty much an okay sequel, staying in sync with the events that happened in the town of Gatlin 8 years earlier, but I'm not sure if I can actually call it better than the original. It's a bit difficult to compare the two movies, since the original definitely wasn't aiming for gore or spectacular kills. The first "CotC" tried to build a bit of mystery and played it a little more creepier. Sure, by today's standards that might very well translate to 'a little more goofier'. But truthfully, upon re-watching "CotC II", I couldn't help noticing it also has its fair share of (unintended) goofy moments. Like the two old sister characters, whose deaths are more funny than terrifying, really (one gets crushed by a house on pillars, the other gets catapulted with her wheelchair into a room full of Bingo-players). And where did that Indian mumbo-jumbo explanation all of the sudden come from? Christie Clark was an enormously cute teen-babe at the time; just thought I'd mention that.
After this first sequel, 4 others followed each other rapidly throughout the '90s, so "CotC II" is much more responsible for starting up the whole franchise than the original was. And all sequels are pretty much on par with what all other sequels from other franchises were being cranked out those days (the '90s installments of the "Amytiville" series, for example). Hardly great horror movies, but they always managed to entertain me, trying to come up with some original & amusing kills time after time or desperately hoping to bring a new twist to tired concepts.
Noteworthy is that Bob Keen & Gary J. Tunnicliffe did the special effects on "CotC II". But then again, it's not exactly their most impressive work ever. At any rate, I did have fun re-watching "CotC II". I like the musical score by Daniel Licht also. He's a talented composer, though people hardly seem to know which (horror) movies he was involved with.
