‘Clown in a Cornfield’ Review

Stars: Katie Douglas, Aaron Abrams, Carson MacCormac, Vincent Muller, Kevin Durand, Will Sasso, Verity Marks, Cassandra Potenza, Ayo Solanke, Alexandra Martin Deakin | Written by Eli Craig, Carter Blanchard | Directed by Eli Craig

Adapted from the 2020 YA novel by Adam Cesare, teen slasher horror Clown in a Cornfield is directed by Eli Craig, who made the 2010 cult comedy hit Tucker and Dale vs Evil (and is also Sally Field’s son, nepo trivia fans). As such, there are some decent stabs at Scream-style meta-comedy and a couple of excellent twists, but the actual horror falls a little flat, especially compared to recent clown-based frighteners.

The film opens in small-town Kettle Springs, Missouri, in 1991, where a couple of partying teens get murdered by a psycho in a clown costume, just as they’re about to have sex in a cornfield. The film then jumps to the present day, where 17-year-old Quinn (Katie Douglas) is moving into Kettle Springs, along with her recently widowed doctor dad (Aaron Abrams).

It transpires that the clown in question is Frendo, the mascot of the Baypen Corn Syrup Company, which had kept the entire town in employment until the recent closure of the syrup factory, following a fire. Quinn quickly bonds with the local group of weirdo cool kids at high school, whose idea of a good time is making short YouTube prank videos, faking attacks by an axe-wielding Frendo. What could possibly go wrong?

Needless to say, in true slasher fashion, it isn’t long before teens start getting sliced up, but just like in Scream, they’re all genre-savvy enough to know exactly which order they are likely to die in, and make wisecracks to that effect. On a similar note, there are also a number of very funny gags at Gen Z’s expense, such as the fact that two characters are unable to call the police because they don’t know how to use a rotary phone.

The performances are very solid. Douglas is the stand-out, with an extremely appealing turn as the final girl – she’s meant to be depressed (due to losing her mother and having to move to a nowhere town) when the film starts and she has a good line in general glumness, which starts receding as she makes friends and meets a guy she likes (Carson MacCormac as Cole, nice guy rich kid and heir to the town’s Corn Syrup empire).

MacCormac is equally good, delivering a charming and likeable turn, and there’s strong support from Vincent Miller as high school outsider Rust, while both Aaron Abrams and Kevin Durand are good value as Quinn and Cole’s dads, respectively. However, the rest of the teen cast are poorly written and fail to make any impression beyond being generic clown fodder. There’s not even the standard wise-cracking nerd.

As for the horror, the gore seems rather on the timid side, with at least one cut before what should have been a crowd-pleasing splatter moment, and a couple of key effects shots seemingly missing, for some reason. The kills aren’t even memorably nasty, and the trailer has already given away what should have been a great moment (involving a hand-over-mouth gesture).

That said, the action ticks along at a decent pace, and it’s all very watchable, even if it’s never particularly scary. On top of that, the film benefits significantly from two big twists, the first of which is a delightful subversion of standard teen horror tropes and a big step forward for representation in the genre.

The second big twist is important enough that it deserves discussion, so please skip the next three paragraphs now, if you wish to remain unspoiled. Still here? Well, the big twist is that the title itself is a clever joke, because it turns out there’s not just one clown in a cornfield, there’s bloody loads of them.

It’s fair to say that, as inspired as that twist is, it comes with both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it gives the plot a nice bit of social commentary and taps into strong generation gap-related anxieties. Similarly, it allows the teen cast to actually kill a decent number of clowns, which both ups the kill count and adds a bit of tension.

However, the downside is that if there are multiple Frendos (“That’s a LOT of Frendos”, someone remarks), then the actual personality of the clown killer ends up getting lost as a result. On top of that, the film rather bungles its key set-piece sequence, which should have really leaned into the whole sudden-multiple-Frendos thing, but instead results in multiple characters just disappearing for no reason.

In short, Clown in a Cornfield has some decent gags and a couple of nice ideas, but it’s not as scary, as inventive, or as funny as it could have been. In theory, it could spawn a franchise, but clown-based franchises are a dime a dozen these days and it might struggle to make much of an impact. It’s still a fun, forgettable Friday night flick though.

*** 3/5

Clown in a Cornfield is out now.