He Who Walks Behind the Rows

This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page.

Evil-doer
Full Name	Walter Padick (implied) Josiah Nock (film series) Moloch (2009 film remake)
Alias	He Who Walks Behind the Rows God of the Old Testament The Lord God of Hell
Origin	Children of the Corn
Occupation	Demonic idol of the Children of the Corn
Powers / Skills	Immense demonic powers Corrupts, controls and empower his "believers" Controls the corn-fields he inhabits and cannot die until it is destroyed Can manifest himself as dark clouds or monstrous entities Pyrokinesis Aerokinesis Electrokinesis Invulnerability Undeath Necromancy The power to bring inanimate things to life
Hobby	Having his followers sacrifice people to him and perform gory rituals. Guiding or luring mortal humans to specific parts of its cursed corn fields,
Goals	Maintain his cult for eternity and spread it wherever he can (possibly on the entire mortal world).
Crimes	Brainwashing and corrupting children Causing mass slaughters Demanding human sacrifices Causing supernatural disasters Malefic Usage of necromancy with criminal intent
Type of Villain	Enigmatic Demon

"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is the unseen presence acting as the overarching antagonist of Stephen King's horror short story Children of the Corn and the film adaptation, its sequels and its remakes. He is a demonic spirit posing as a twisted fertility deity, who corrupted the children of the remote town of Gatlin into a murderous cult bent of sacrificing every adult around.

Characteristics

"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is never seen in the story, but his influence is felt throughout. No one really knows where he comes from or when he appeared, and he can be defined as an evil force rather than a corporeal entity, whose true nature, name and aspect remains unknown throughout the series (although other stories hint that he is yet another incarnation of Randall Flagg, the main antagonist of author Stephen King's works). He influences the world through the corn-fields surrounding the towns, in which the ones sacrificed to him must venture and never to return. It is stated that night time is when he is most active, though he can act at any other time.

"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is a shapeless evil spirit who controls the corn-fields and every crop in it as a sort of extension of himself. In the short story, he appears as a red-eyed monster that comes out of the field, though whether it is the real demon or a manifestation remains unclear. In the first movie, he manifests himself both as a menacing presence tunneling his way underground and ominous reddish clouds that fill the sky, and in other Children of the Corn films, he appears as a giant, tentacled demon, or manifests himself through a silo filled with supernatural fire.

In every movie, he is seemingly destroyed (or at least severely weakened) when the corn-fields or his other vessels are destroyed, but returns when his followers establish his cult somewhere else. The end of the short story implies that burning the corn-fields to the ground might destroy him, but whether it is or not remains open to interpretation.

He influences the place where his cult is set, being seemingly able to see and hear everywhere around them, even in people's minds. He can also corrupt children: turning normal, innocent youths into hateful and murderous fanatics who slaughter anyone with an almost feral glee, in a twisted form of religious faith. However, the story and movies show that his influence can wane and that some of the children's personality remains, or can return upon dying.

In the movies, he can possess his disciples and act through them, and his able to grant them demonic powers, such as agelessness and invulnerability, telekinesis, mind-control, superhuman strength, the ability to hurl fireballs, and some. He has many other powers, being able to command over wind, lightning and insects, to raise sentient undead beings, to animate things, and to cause dreams and visions to people around.

"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" seeks to create a community of worshipers who would follow his will. While in the short story, he seems content in controlling Gatlin, Nebraska, likely due to the abundance of corns in which he thrives, the movie series show him trying to extend his cult over the entire United States of America, if not the world. To that end, he took control of several gangs of children over the years, through a child-preacher under his complete control serving as his "high priest", who commands his followers and enforces his rules, the first and foremost being Isaac from the original short story. He has them slaughter every adult in their towns to take it over, and has all passers-by and cultists reaching the age of twenty sacrificed to him. Whenever his followers fail him or displease him, the maximum age is lowered. When the story takes place, it has already been lowered to nineteen.

He first manifested in the fictional town of Gatlin in Nebraska within the United States, and remained there or in the nearby agglomerations. In the movies, he searched to produce an heir, by possessing one of his followers and having him impregnate a woman.

"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" has his followers worship him as a twisted parody of Jesus Christ, through ugly crucifixes made of corn crops. His cult mixes aspects of pagan cults and the Bible's Old Testament, though hideously twisted. All his children followers relinquish their birth name to take biblical ones, and start dressing in Amish-fashion and living like farmers from the XVIII Century. He forbids any kind of modern technology and leisure activity, separates boys and girls with the boys doing the work and the girls doing the chores, and decides breeding time in which all his followers in age must publicly mate in hideous parodies of a bacchanalia.

History

Children of the Corn

In the original short story and the 2009 remake, set in 1975, Burt and his wife Vicky travel by car through the American country-field, hoping to save their crumbling marriage with a second honeymoon. They run over a boy who was carrying a case and an ugly crop-crucifix, and discover that the boy was already dying of a sliced throat. (It later turns out that the boy was wounded when trying to escape the cult.) They resolve to bring the boy's corpse to the nearest police station and venture in the seemingly abandoned town of Gatlin, arguing all along the way. Frightened, Vicky insists to leave at once, but Burt rudely ignores her.

While Vicky returns to the car (but cannot leave since Burt kept the keys), Burt starts investigating, not knowing that Isaac and his followers are watching his every move, and eventually discovers that twelve years ago, the children relinquished their former names and killed anyone over twenty years old. Alerted by the car horn, he rushes to Vicky, but the children take her away and sabotage the car.

Burt fights off the children and flees through the corn-fields, witnessing Vicky's dead body, crucified to a crop-cross with barbed wire with her eyes gouged out and her mouth stuffed with corn husks, as were the local priest and policemen (survivors of the massacre killed by "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" himself). He discovers that all exits of the corn-fields were closed-up, and feels a presence looming closer. He is then attacked by crops and haunted by the boys he killed, before being murdered by a monster just as the harvest moon rises in the night sky.

At the end, Isaac announces to his cult that "He Who Walks Behind the Rows", furious at having to kill Burt himself, lowered the maximum age to eighteen. All his eighteen-year-old followers, including Isaac's top enforcer Malachai Boardman, are lead to their death into the corn-fields, where Burt in turn was turned into a "scarecrow". Malachai's pregnant girlfriend Ruth, who secretly hates the cult, ponders on burning the corn-fields to the ground, but is too afraid to do so. (However, the remake implies that she eventually will.)

Children of the Corn (1984 film)

The movie begins with Isaac preaching to the children of Gatlin while the population is praying to God after a bad harvest. The children later murder every adult in Gatlin, while Isaac witnesses with a smug grin. Three years later, Burt and Vicky, who in this movie travel through the countryside towards the city where Burt is to start his new job.

Like in the story, their troubles begin when they run over a mortally wounded boy who was fleeing the cult, and start searching for a police station. They end up in Gatlin after the old gas-station attendant refuses to help them (the children keep him alive in exchange of gasoline and new victims). While Malachai punishes two children who were playing, Burt and Vicky explore the dilapidated town, whose buildings are smeared with Isaac’s sermons pained in blood. They are eventually attacked by the children, who capture Vicky and prepare to sacrifice her.

Burt discovers the cult and its gloomy rituals, but manages to fight away the murderous children and meets Job and Sara, two children who are not under the influence of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". Later, a jealous Malachai kills the gas-station attendant and usurps Isaac, preparing to sacrifice him and take command, despite Isaac yelling at him for disobeying their foul deity. As a tempest rises, seemingly caused by "He Who Walks Behind the Rows", and becomes increasingly violent, Burt sneaks into the corn-fields and defeats Malachai in a fistfight.

He saves Vicky and tells the children to stop following the cult and shakes the demon's control over them, but the demon retaliates by attacking them underground, forcing them to seek shelter in the barn. "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" then possesses Isaac and kills Malachai through him, before rising under the shape of red clouds and attacking the barn with gusts of wind. Burt and the redeemed children manage to douse the entire corn-fields with the town's supplies of gasoline, and Burt throws a Molotov Cocktail in it, blasting the entire corn-field into oblivion and defeating the evil spirit, who seems to die in the explosion.

The morning after, Burt and Vicky depart towards the nearest town with Job and Sarah, whom they plan to adopt.

The Final Sacrifice

This sequel to the 1984 adaptation features John, a reporter investigating on the Gatlin events, and his son Danny, who take residence in an inn of Hemingford, as the citizen are giving shelter to the surviving children of the cult. As John is getting romantically involved with Angela the innkeeper, Micah, one of the children, is still under the control of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" and corrupts the children again, restarting the cult.

As the children start a new killing spree in Hemingford, John and a college professor named Frank theorize that something in the corn harvest of Gatlin is turning the children insane. Micah brings Danny into the cult, but he cannot bring himself to sacrifice his newfound friend Lacey, and John and Frank intervene. They flee to the haunted corn-fields, that prevents them from escaping, and "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" possesses Micah, turning him into a monster. Frank gets mortally wounded, but manages to activate the Harvester and set it ablaze, killing Micah (who reverts to normal before horribly dying) and destroying the corn crops from Gatlin, freeing the children for good.

Urban Harvest

The story begins when Joshua and Eli, two orphaned brothers from near Gatlin, are brought to Chicago to be adopted by William and Amanda Porter. However, Eli refuses to adapt to the city life and starts planting corn that he brought from Gatlin in the courtyard of an abandoned factory, for he is an agent of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". It is soon revealed that Eli never aged since the Gatlin massacre and has killed his father himself.

After Eli kills the social worker, who discovered the truth, and Amanda is killed by the factory crops when trying to destroy them, William discovers Eli's crops, resisting disease and growing extremely fast no matter what, and plans to get rich by selling them. Eli feeds the students of his school with his corn and corrupts them into becoming his cult, making them kill his parents and killing those who oppose him with insects. Joshua and his friend Malcolm and Maria drive back to Gatlin and fight back his undead father to find Eli's bible, at the cost of Malcolm's life.

Joshua confronts his brother, who just killed William with a sickle, and his cult, bouncing back his fireballs at him with his bible, and stabs both him and the bible with a sickle, killing him and dispelling his control over the students.

Just as everything seems won, "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" manifests himself from within the earth as a giant demon, and starts slaughtering the students with tentacles erupting from the ground. Joshua and Maria manage to cut his central tentacle, causing the demon and his crops to vanish into dust.

Alas, Eli's corn crops are already being exported all over the world, meaning that the demon will return and spread his cult everywhere.

The Gathering

"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" never appears in this movie and the only reference to him was cut. However, he raised a child preacher named Josiah, who died of mercury poisoning after being buried alive.

Josiah spreads a strange fever that affects the children of Grand Island in Nebraska, getting them possessed by long dead children and turning them into half-undeads. Josiah then takes control of the possessed children and starts a new killing spree. Grace, a medical student sets up to save her younger siblings, who have been infected by the fever, along with Donald, another distraught parent. They eventually discover that Josiah is weak to mercury, the very cause of his first demise. They confront the children in a barn and set the barn sprinklers, which they tampered with mercury, dousing Josiah and killing him for good, returning the children to normal.

Fields of Terror

The story begins with a boy named Ezekiel coming across a mysterious fire in the middle of a corn-field; in fact a manifestation of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" who possesses him. Ezekiel restarts the demon's foul cult and starts yet another killing spree in the rural town of Divinity Falls, though hidding its activities this time. They sacrifice all cult members who reach eighteen by making jump into a silo, in which the demon manifests as green supernatural fire.

Years later, a group of teenagers travel to the American countryside to scatter the ashes of their friend Kirk, who committed suicide. An accident leaves them stranded in the town, and they meet Ezekiel and his cult, who tells them to leave. It turns out that one of them, Allison, has heard of "He Who Walks Behind The Rows" from her drunkard father before running away, and that her estranged brother Jacob, who is about to become a father, is part of Ezekiel's cult, led by a prophetic madman named Luke.

They discover that two of their friends who went ahead in their trip were killed by the cult, but upon reading their bible, Kirk’s grieving girlfriend joins the cult and throws herself in the fiery silo after Jacob refuses and leaves the farm. Jacob is then captured by the cult and Ezekiel stabs him, leaving him to bleed to death for insubordination.

Warned by Allison and her friends, the sheriff and two firemen enter Luke's farm. The firemen attempt to extinguish the silo, but they get killed by the living fire, while the sheriff is killed by Luke, who is in fact an undead controlled by Ezekiel to serve as a front for the cult. Allison fights off the cultists and find her dying brother, who tells her how to defeat "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". A battle ensues during which Allison’s friends and policemen kill many cultists at the cost of their lives. Ezekiel attacks Allison with a hook, but she throws him in the fire, and throws fertilizer in the fire to destroy the silo, and the demon with it, in the resulting blast, freeing the remaining children from his foul influence.

The following day, Allison adopts her brother's new-born baby, not knowing that he is possessed by "He Who Walks Behind the Rows".

666: Isaac's Return

This movie features Hannah, the first born of the original cult in Gatlin, who travels to the town to learn about her origins. She learns of a prophecy stating that the fist girl and the born son in the cult will give birth to the son of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". She also befriends a young man named Gabriel. At the same time, Isaac, the first child preacher who was thought dead but was in fact in a coma for nineteen years, awakes. It turns out that Isaac has a son, Matt, whom he wants to be the father of his demonic idol. (How could he father a child at barely 12 years old is never explained.) However, Matt grew up away from the cult's influence and rejects his legacy.

Hannah finds her mother, but the now adults cultists of Gatlin, still corrupted by the demon and following Isaac once again, capture her and Matt to force them in a creepy parody of a wedding. They escape thanks to Gabriel and Matt's girlfriend, but the cult recaptures the latter two and a livid Isaac renounces his son before killing his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Gabriel and Hannah end up having sex. Shortly after, a desperate Matt barges in, and after talking with Gabriel, he kills himself with a scythe.

Hannah goes to confront Isaac, who is holding her mother captive, while Gabriel kills one of the cultists and forces another to shoot herself. It is then revealed that Gabriel is the real first son, set aside by Isaac in favour for his own, and the physical vessel of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". Gabriel kills Isaac and heals after Hannah's mother stabs him, before seemingly disappearing in a huge explosion, while Hannah departs, pregnant with his child.

Children of the Corn: Revelation

"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is only referenced in this movie. The story begins when a young woman named Jamie goes to Omaha in Nebraska, to search for her grandmother who has gone missing. She cannot find her but keeps having unnerving encounters with creepy children. As the children are killing many people around her, she eventually learns that her grandmother was the sole survivor of yet another cult of children worshiping "He Who Walks Behind the Rows", led by a child preacher named Abel. In stark contrast with the cult's usual precepts, the cult committed mass suicide in a fire, and were reborn as undead spirits. The children that she kept encountering were part of this cult.

Jamie confronts Abel's cult in her grandmother's basement, including her undead grandmother herself. Abel prevents them from fleeing and orders her to join them, but she causes an explosion, destroying the children and freeing their souls.

Children of the Corn: Genesis

"He Who Walks Behind the Rows" does not appear and is not even mentioned in this movie, so the ties with the previous stories is hard to define. It tells the story of a young couple, Allie and Tim, who after getting lost take shelter in a farm run by a strange preacher. (A preacher who returned from Vietnam to Gatlin and witnessed his family get killed by the cult.) 

Allie eventually discovers that the preacher leads a gloomy cult, with an ominous young boy with dark powers serving as its main idol. (The boy is likely a remnant of sorts of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows", but his nature and origins are never explained.) They are kept captive by supernatural forces, and the cult "plants a seed" in Allie's womb. They try to escape but the child cause a car accident, killing Tim, and Allie is brought back to the farm, where she is put with the child and starts singing in a trance, likely staying this way for the rest of her life.

Gallery

Images

The screaming "face" of He Who Walks Behind the Rows as seen in Children of the Corn (1984).

He Who Walks Behind the Rows, as seen in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest.

Videos

Children Of Corn Theme

Navigation

Novels/Novellas Carrie: Carrie White | Mortimer Snerds (Chris Hargensen, Donna and Mary Lila Grace Thibodeau, Helen Shyres, Heather Shyres & Tina Blake) | Margaret White | Billy Nolan | Ralph White Salem's Lot: Kurt Barlow | Richard Straker | Marsten House The Shining: Overlook Hotel | Jack Torrance | Hotel Caretaker | Grady Sisters | Lorraine Massey Children of the Corn: Children of the Corn (Isaac Chroner & Malachai Boardman) | He Who Walks Behind the Rows Rage: Charlie Decker | Mr. Decker The Stand: Randall Flagg | Barry Dorgan | Bobby Terry | Harold Lauder | Julie Lawry | Lloyd Henreid | Nadine Cross | The Kid | The Rat Man | Trashcan Man | Whitney Horgan The Long Walk: The Major | Gary Barkovitch The Dead Zone: Greg Stillson | Frank Dodd The Mist: Adrian Garff | Mrs. Carmody | The Mist Firestarter: Captain Hollister | Doctor Herman Pynchot | John Rainbird Roadwork: Barton George Dawes | Sal Magliore Cujo: Cujo | Joe Camber | Stephen Kemp The Running Man: Damon Killian | United States of America Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: Samuel Norton | Byron Hadley | Sisters (Bogs Diamond) | Elmo Blatch Apt Pupil: Kurt Dussander | Todd Bowden The Body: The Cobras (John "Ace" Merrill, Richard "Eyeball" Chambers, Billy Tessio, Charlie Hogan, Vince Desjardins, Jack Mudgett & Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz) Christine: Arnie Cunningham | Christine | Repperton Gang | Roland D. LeBay Pet Sematary: Wendigo | Church | Gage Creed | Rachel Creed | Timmy Baterman Cycle of the Werewolf: Lester Lowe The Tailsman: Morgan Sloat Thinner: Billy Halleck | Tadzu Lempke | Cary Rossington | Duncan Hopley | Gabe Romani | Gina Lempke | Richie Ginelli Dolan's Cadillac: Jimmy Dolan It: It | Bowers Gang (Belch Huggins, Henry Bowers, Marcia Fadden, Patrick Hockstetter, Peter Gordon & Vic Criss) | Alvin Marsh | Butch Bowers | Richard Macklin | Tom Rogan | Christopher Unwin | Webby Garton Misery: Annie Wilkes The Tommyknockers: Tommyknockers | Nancy Voss The Dark Half: George Stark Secret Window, Secret Garden: John Shooter The Langoliers: Craig Toomey | Langoliers | Roger Toomey Needful Things: Leland Gaunt | John "Ace" Merrill | Danforth Keeton III | Brian Rusk | Wilma Jerzyck | Nettie Cobb | Hugh Preist | Father Brigham (Father Meehan) | Reverend Rose Gerald's Game: Gerald Burlingame | Moonlight Man | Tom Mahout Dolores Claiborne: Joe St. George Insomnia: Atropos | Crimson King Rose Madder: Norman Daniels The Green Mile: William Wharton | Percy Wetmore Desperation: Tak | Sheriff Collie Entragian The Regulators: Tak Bag of Bones: Max Devore | Sara Tidwell | Roggete Whitmore The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: God of the Lost Dreamcatcher: Byrus | Mr. Gray Black House: Charles Burnside | The Crow Gorg | Mr. Munshun From a Buick 8: The Buick Cell: Phone Crazies | Raggedy Man Lisey's Story: Andrew Landon | Jim Dooley | Long Boy The Gingerbread Girl: Jim Pickering Duma Key: Perse | Undead Victims Under the Dome: Jim Rennie | Junior Rennie | Phil Bushey | Leatherheads 1922: Wilfred James | Henry James | Shannon Cotterie Big Driver: Lester Norville | Ramona Norville A Good Marriage: Robert Bob Anderson 11/22/63: Lee Harvey Oswald | Frank Dunning In The Tall Grass: Ross Humboldt | Cal Demuth Doctor Sleep: The True Knot (Rose the Hat, Crow Daddy, Grandpa Flick, Barry the Chink & Snakebite Andi) | Andy Hallorann Bill Hodges Trilogy: Brady Hartsfield | Morris Bellamy Gwendy's Button Box: Richard Farris The Outsider: The Outsider Fairy Tale: Gogmagog | Elden | Petra | Kellin | Hana | Red Molly | Peterkin | Christopher Polley Short Stories Cain Rose Up: Curt Garrish The Mangler: Bill Gartley | The Mangler The Boogeyman: The Boogeyman Trucks: Westway Refrigerated Truck | Bulldozer The Ledge: Cressner Jerusalem's Lot: Philip Boone | James Boon | The Worm Quitter's Inc.: Mr. Donatti | Quitters Inc. The Crate: Crate Beast Crouch End: The Children | The Goat with a Thousand Young The Monkey: The Monkey The Raft: Lake Blob Word Processor of the Gods: Richard Hagstrom | Roger Hagstrom Gramma: Gramma Bruckner The Night Flier: Dwight Renfield Low Men in Yellow Coats: Harry Doolin Blind Willie: Raymond Fiegler Why We're In Vietnam: Ronnie Malenfant Lunch at the Gotham Café: Guy Films The Shining: Overlook Hotel (Lloyd, Lorraine Massey & Hotel Caretaker) | Jack Torrance Creepshow: Creepshow Creep | Crate Beast | Nathan Grantham | Richard Vickers | Upson Pratt | Wilma Northrup Cat's Eye: Cressner | Mr. Donatti | Quitters Inc. | Troll Maximum Overdrive: Bubba Hendershot | Camp Loman | Happy Toyz Truck | Ice Cream Truck | M274 Mule | Vending Machine A Return to Salem`s Lot: Judge Axle Creepshow 2: Creepshow Creep | Creepshow Bullies | Lake Blob | Sam Whitemoon | The HitchHiker Sleepwalkers: Charles Brady | Mary Brady | Sleepwalkers Pet Sematary 2: Gus Gilbert | Renee Hallow | Clyde Parker | Zowie The Mangler Trilogy: Bill Gartley | The Mangler | Lin Sue | The Mangler Virus The Rage: Carrie 2: Rachel Lang | Mark Bing Creepshow 3: Creepshow Creep | Rachel The Dark Tower: Randall Flagg It: Part One: It | Bowers Gang (Henry Bowers, Vic Criss | Belch Huggins & Patrick Hockstetter) Pet Sematary (2019): Ellie Creed It: Part Two: It | Henry Bowers | Tom Rogan Doctor Sleep: The True Knot (Rose the Hat, Crow Daddy, Grandpa Flick, Barry the Chink & Snakebite Andi) | Overlook Hotel (Jack Torrance, Hotel Caretaker & Lorraine Massey) The Boogeyman: Boogeyman TV Series The Stand: Randall Flagg | Harold Lauder | Julie Lawry | Nadine Cross | The Rat Woman | Trashcan Man The Shining: Overlook Hotel | Jack Torrance | Hotel Caretaker | Lorraine Massey Storm of the Century: André Linoge Rose Red: Professor Joyce Reardon | Ellen Rimbauer Under the Dome: Big Jim Rennie | Junior Rennie | Phil Bushey | The Kinship (Christine Price & Dawn Sinclair-Barbara) Other The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: Ellen Rimbauer See Also The Dark Tower Villains