Director: Eli Craig
Stars: Katie Douglas, Carson MacCormac, Aaron Abrams
Another killer clown? In the wake of the two-part IT adaptation from Andy Muschietti and the ongoing Terrifier series (now somewhat sullied by the online blundering of helmsman Damien Leone), there surely isn’t space for another face-painted menace carving up unsuspecting kids in small town America. Clown in a Cornfield would like to suggest otherwise, slotting itself into the growing pantheon of new wave teen slashers that want to come at a supposedly tired subgenre from new angles.
And there’s definitely a spirit of “It’s our turn now” about Eli Craig’s offering. Set in the rural Americana of an unspecified ‘flyover’ state, Clown in a Cornfield pits generations against one another long before the slaying starts.
Quinn (Katie Douglas) has been moved to the small town of Kettle Springs by her father Dr. Glenn Maybrook (Aaron Abrams) since he’s taken up the vacant position of local physician. She’s a typical teenager, rolling eyes at authority and always in search of decent Wi-Fi. Falling in with a high school clique that both the teachers and the sheriff (Will Sasso) seem to have identified as problem cases, she discovers the group’s antagonistic streak. Cole (Carson MacCormac), Janet (Cassandra Potenza), Ronnie (Verity Marks), Tucker (Ayo Solanke) and Tyler (Dylan McEwan) have developed an online following for their amateur horror videos that recast the town’s mascot – corn syrup clown Frendo – as an all-purpose boogeyman.
Already, surprisingly, Clown in a Cornfield has a few things going on, from celebrating the ingenuity of up’n’coming horror creatives to investigating tensions of tradition. Because the teens dare to question (through mockery) heritage they’re seen as inherently dangerous. The urge to buck against any system is part of growing up and asserting your own space. But for the conservatives of Kettle Springs – led by Kevin Durand’s Musk-lookalike Mayor Hill – the past is lionised. An idealised place, never visited, that’s become a symbol of lost values. Sound familiar? So when the kids find themselves targets of another maniac Frendo, it doesn’t take a lot of scrutiny to figure out where Clown in a Cornfield is headed with all of this.
Craig’s a dyed-in-the-wool horror hound (2010’s cult hit Tucker and Dale vs Evil was his) and the intent to cross the flippant immediacy of the teen slasher movie with something more broadly satirical has legs. See also an incredibly welcome aside of positive gay representation in a subgenre that has traditionally shirked such responsibility. A further push of the modern against the antiquated. So it’s a shame to report that, in spite of good intentions, Clown in a Cornfield mostly falls flat.
In spite of a suitably tight running time, the first half of the picture is taken up with dawdling teen dramas that only encourage mid-level interest. Granted, a lot of this is set-up, and it’s worth bedding in characters, but it also highlights shortcomings in the decidedly patchy and cliché-heavy screenplay. This extends to the seeming indecision over how to approach things tonally.
Weak on laughs and devoid of any semblance of tension, when the kills come there’s no sense of shock or invigoration. Our fiendish Frendo packs no punch at all, appearing out of nowhere over and over like a Purge cosplayer who’s got lost on a farm. A mid-film twist brings to mind Sophia Takal’s unfairly maligned Black Christmas reboot from 2019. Ironically, Clown in a Cornfield is guilty of many of the offences leveled at that film; none of this is remotely believable, coming off as daft and ill-thought-out, while the sledgehammer approach to ideas of ‘wokeness’ are ungainly in their execution.
It doesn’t help any that the movie doesn’t seem certain which side it’s on. Principally the message is to mock the townspeople of burbs like Kettle Springs for their cantankerous, archaic ideology and their blind allegiance to a foolish ringleader (casting Trump supporters as literal clowns! Get it!?). But there’s also a muddied through line which ridicules the young for their inability to contend with outmoded technology. As a result Clown in a Cornfield feels for all the world like a middle-aged attempt to pander to a new generation it also doesn’t quite trust or understand.
More than anything though – and in spite of the decent efforts of the cast – next to nothing here lands with the anarchic spirit it clearly intends. Too goofy to be chilling, too obnoxious to be endearing, it all becomes a chore. To quote the exasperated sheriff somewhere in the latter stages of the picture, “Jesus fucking Christ this is endless”. I know how he felt, and it’s only the evident ambition for something better that keeps this one from being an instantly forgettable one-star picture.
The Lost Highway Hotel 