Thin Spots: What Peeks through the Cracks in the World

“Children of the Corn” is among Stephen King’s best-known short stories. Published first in Penthouse in 1977, it grew into a multipart film franchise that both deepened its mythological background and extended his initial vision of a mysterious religious cult planted deep in Midwest corn country. For King, the original was one of those stories “where things happen just because they happen.”¹ Like Desperation , published nearly two decades later, “Children of the Corn” is based on a classic horror trope: wrong place, wrong time. For Burt and Vicky Robeson, the place is Gatlin, Nebraska, the time is the twenty-first