CAST: Nancy Allen, Natalie Ramsey, Paul Popowich, Stacy Keach, Alix Koronzay, John Franklin, Nathan Bexton, John Patrick White
SCR: Tim Sulka and John Franklin
DIR: Kari Skogland
STUDIO: Dimension Home Video

The only reason to keep doing sequels to Stephen King's short story about a cult of devil worshippers in a Midwestern county called Gatlin--begun back in 1984 before the cornhusking market collapsed--is to keep up the body count for gore fans, so here goes:

One man electrocuted (no blood or gore, just a lot of sparks and screaming), one suicide by falling on a scythe with the blade sticking up in the air (close up of the blade penetrating the male body), a woman split in half by a sword (close up of the head dividing down the middle), a steel pole through a human torso (close up of area of entry with blood spattered on all sides) and a couple of others I can't remember now, having gone out to get some lunch.

Thanks goes to screenwriters Sulka and Franklin for maintaining a pretty lively line-up of homicides and to director Skogland for not failing to demand from his cinematographer all those graphic close-ups.

Oh, the story. Almost forgot. Angst-riddled Ramsey (playing a gal named Hannah) is psychically drawn back to Gatlin in her beat-up convertible and learns, when she hits the almost-deserted town, that she is the Chosen One.

That means the Devil's son Gabriel (Popowich) is going to lay her before midnight and spawn the next evil leader of the devil pact that worships He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Ramsey's mom (Allen) tries to save her daughter from this fate worse than death, and so does world-weary doctor Keach, on leave from narrating a TV show about disastrous true-life events. But it doesn't work.

Popowich squirts a water hose all over Ramsey's nude body and that turns her on. She really gets horny and then they writhe in the spray from the erupting water hose and presumably make the baby that you know is gonna give everyone a helluva time.

Franklin, in addition to writing every other word of the script, returns to the series as Isaac, a short although feisty little guy who's always conjuring up demons in a cornfield. Isaac is first shown in a coma in a hospital room, accounting for why he wasn't in the last couple of pictures. Awakened from his slumber, little Franklin hurries out into the nearest cornfield amd tears into everyone with a vengeance, spouting all the prophecies that keep coming true in these movies, because that's the way they were written in the script.

But even Isaac gets some surprises from Gabriel who really blows his horn before bloodbath No. 6 is over. No. 7 is all set up now for the birth of the new devil child, so you can be sure of a continuing body count. Whew, that's a relief.

--reviewed by JOHN STANLEY

Evaluation: D (it deserves an F but the body count came up to the usual number)