- While traveling, an unhappy married couple encounter a cult of murderous children who worship an entity called He Who Walks Behind the Rows.
- The film opens in the year 1963, in the town of Gatlin in western Nebraska, which is in the middle of a severe drought. In a tent out in the vast cornfields, a young boy, claiming that the Old Testament-era Canaanite God whom he calls "He Who Walks Behind The Rows" had spoken to him in his dreams, telling the other children that the sinful and blasphemous adults are the reason for their recent troubles (making a comparison to the corruption in Sodom and Gomorrah). The boy preacher tells the children that in order for them to never know thirst or hunger again they must kill everyone over the age of 19 in town; leading them to found a death cult with a prime rule that, once reaching the age of nineteen, one must be sacrificed to the cult's God.
Twelve years later in the year 1975, a constantly bickering couple consisting of Vietnam veteran Burt (David Anders) and his anti-war activist wife Vicky (Kandyse McClure) are driving along a back road near Gatlin, Nebraska, planning on celebrating their second honeymoon in California, when a boy named Joseph (Ramington Jennings) stumbles out of the roadside corn and in front of their car. Accidentally running Joseph over, Burt assesses his body and realizes the boy's throat was slashed. After wrapping and placing Joseph's body in the trunk, Burt tells Vicky to wait for him while he looks around with shotgun in hand. Among the corn, Burt finds Joseph's bloodied suitcase and takes it with him back to the car. He and Vicky drive off in search of aid and to report the incident to the local law enforcement, not realizing they were being watched by Isaac (Preston Bailey), the nine-year-old boy preacher and current cult leader, and his most loyal follower, the 18-year-old warrior Malachai (Daniel Newman).
After hearing a group of children giving an evangelical sermon over the radio, Burt and Vicky reach an abandoned gas station before deciding to go to Gatlin after finding the phones non-functional. While Burt drives, Vicky manages to open Joseph's suitcase and finds a tribal-looking idol made of corn inside, which she recognizes as a pagan creation.
Meanwhile, at the cornfields in a small clearing, Isaac tells the others about Burt and Vicky's arrival and that they, like the "blue man" (the corpse of a local police officer who was crucified for trying to stop them 12 years ago), must be killed to appease "He Who Walks Behind The Rows", who also demanded that Joseph be hence forth known as "Ahaz", cursed of God, for trying to escape from the cult.
Reaching the town, Burt and Vicky find it seemingly abandoned, with a calendar in a bar still reading 1963. Eventually coming across a church with a sermon board dated as recently as last week, Burt goes inside to investigate, ignoring Vicky's pleas that they should just turn back and leave (while also taking her keys after she threatens to abandon him). Inside the church, Burt finds various occult drawings, biblical passages written on the walls, larger version of the idol that was in Joseph's suitcase and a book listing the birthdays of the town's inhabitants, including their dates of death and the names of their offspring's.
As Burt skims through the book, Vicky is surrounded and attacked by Malachai and several other boys (directed from a nearby rooftop by Isaac). Vicky manages to kill one of them with Burt's shotgun before Malachai stabs her. Hearing the shotgun blast, Burt rushes outside just as Malachai blows the car up and has two of his boys secretly drag the wounded Vicky away. Chased by the children into an alleyway, Burt is taunted by Isaac (who throws a knife at him asking He Who Walks Behind The Rows to guide his hand and the knife hits him in the arm ). Burt pulls out the knife and breaks it, apparently unfazed, killing one of the older boys while breaking the arm of another in retaliation. Burt then runs off into the cornfields, where the children refrain from going further without either Isaac or Malachai present.
In the alleyway back in the town, Isaac confronts Malachai, telling him that by spilling Joseph's blood in the corn he has angered He Who Walks Behind The Rows. After questioning Malachai's faith, Isaac has him pray before the two regroup with their followers. Isaac and Malachai inform their group that they must sacrifice Burt in the clearing where the "blue man's" corpse is held. After leading with a song, Malachai and the children start hunting Burt through the corn. While searching, Malachai is told by Nahum (Paul Butler, Jr), one of the younger boys, that he had a vision of He Who Walks Behind The Rows, leading Malachai to believe Nahum is the new prophet and that Isaac's time is coming to an end. Before leaving to continue the search for Burt (who had overheard the entire conversation), Malachai mentions that they must finish the search before dark, as that is He Who Walks Behind The Row's time.
Having lost a large amount of blood due to his arm injury and suffering from dehydration, Burt has PTSD flashbacks from Vietnam. He proceeds to ambush and kill a number of the pursuing children, including Nahum, who he mistakes for a Vietcong during his delirium. At nightfall, the children abandon the search and return to the town. They have a feast prepared by the young females, who seem concerned that Burt was not apprehended.
Later that night, Isaac holds a sermon in the church based on the tenet of "be fruitful and multiply" and proclaims that the time of fertilization has come. He beckons a young teenage girl (Zita Vass) and a boy (Jake White) in white robes up to the front of the church, where they immediately disrobe and have passionate sex on top of the altar in front of the entire congregation, much to their excitement.
In the fields, Burt, lost and delirious, falls unconscious from exhaustion and has nightmarish visions of all those he had killed, which ends with Vicky's agonizing screams that rouse him from the horrific dream. Sensing impending danger, he begins wandering around aimlessly, searching for the road to get away by using the starlit sky to navigate the cornfield maze. When suddenly plant life attacks him and the cornstalks appear to move on their own and grow taller, blotting out the stars and closing the path behind him. As if being led by the sentient cornfield, Burt finds the clearing and discovers Vicky who, like the "blue man", has been killed and made into a scarecrow. Hallucinating that Vicky's dead corpse is talking to him and inviting him to join her, Burt is suddenly faced by He Who Walks Behind The Rows (briefly glimpsed as a towering blackened demon figure with two large red eyes), who proceeds to disembowel him and gouge his eyes out in a form of ritual sacrifice.
The next day in the clearing, Isaac tells the children that He Who Walks Behind The Rows spoke to him in a dream that 'He' is displeased with their inability to kill Burt, who 'He' had to dispose of 'Himself', like the "blue man" (revealed to be the former police chief of Gatlin) who killed several of their kind and tried to burn the cornfield (who, when killed, forced the 'age of favor' from 20 to 19). Before burying their dead, Isaac tells everyone that He Who Walks Behind The Rows has informed him that as of now, the 'age of favor' for sacrifice has been lowered from 19 to 18, as punishment for their sins and their failure to kill Burt on their own. After all the children depart, Isaac stands in front of the a pile of the children's bodies whom Burt and Vicky killed, and as he sets them on fire he looks at something in front of him and shouts "Scarecrow!". The scarecrow is revealed to be Burt... now a mutilated corpse hanging on another cross made from corn, next to the dead body of Vicky and the skeletal remains of the "blue man"/Police Chief.
Later after the end credits, Malachai leads all the other eighteen year-old boys and girls who enter the cornfields at dusk, willingly offering themselves to He Who Walks Behind The Rows. While saying goodbye, Malachai's 16-year-old pregnant lover Ruth (Alexa Nikolas), whose faith had earlier been shaken, has a vision of herself setting fire to the corn.
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