Film Review: 'Clown In A Cornfield' Is Exactly What It Looks Like. That's A Good Thing.
If you walk into Clown In A Cornfield expecting anything different than what it sounds like, I have some bad news for you. For those of you who know what to expect from this world of horror - a B-movie genre-fest with memorable kills, teenagers running amok, and a conspiracy at the center of an old town that involves a killer clown - then you’re in luck. The independent horror film, adapted from an Adam Cesare horror novel published in 2020, is a good time. It’s not trying to be an elevated horror masterpiece; it’s bloody, it’s entertaining, no additional frills necessary.
After an opening kill sequence (it’s expected when you see two teenagers wandering into a empty cornfield, alone at night), we meet Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) and her father Glenn (Aaron Abrams). A personal tragedy brings them to a new town with a fresh start, and Dad is opening up a new medical practice in the small town of Kettle Springs, Missouri. Quinn is late for her first day of school, and this awakens the ire of the “total dick” of the teacher.
In one of his moods (and irritated by the pranks pulled on him by his students), a group of kids, including Quinn, are awarded detention. There, she meets a group of her peers, and hits it off with them, including Cole Hill (Carson MacCormac), the great-grandson of the man that founded the town of Kettle Springs and the famous Baypen Corn Syrup brand. Oh, and did I mention that she and her father happen to arrive in town close to the 100th Founders Day, an annual celebration of the town’s history a la Fourth of July?
Upon hanging out with them one night and getting into some mischief, Quinn discovers that the friends film prank videos, often involving an iteration of the Baypen Corn Syrup mascot, Frendo the clown. Suddenly, the teenagers start to get plucked off, by a man dressed exactly like the clown, in a variety of gruesome ways. It’s nowhere on the level of, say, Terrifier, but are some memorable kills, particularly in the back half of the film.
There are a lot of details to keep track of here as I write them, but the film makes it easy to follow them and doesn’t spend most of the time bogging you down with exposition; it’s fun to watch it unfold. Yes, a number of the teenagers in the group are killed off quickly, only in the movie to fulfill certain character tropes common with slasher films, but it’s never excruciating to watch the acting, say as it would be in a number of the Friday the 13th sequels. There’s at least some effort put into fleshing out the characters, even if they’re on screen for just a few minutes. At one point, the characters lament that the town looks exactly the same as it did in the 1990s, like the people running the town don’t want to change anything about it.
With that being said, there are a few genre tropes that are completely subverted, bringing this out a previous generation and into the modern age, and I appreciated that. It made the film that much more interesting and stand apart from the traditional slasher films that occupy the genre. Overall, Clown in a Cornfield is exactly the film you get as advertised. You can’t ask for much more than that.
Release Date: May 9th, 2025
Rated: R (for bloody horror violence, language throughout, and teen drinking)
Directed by: Eli Craig
Written by: Carter Blanchard and Eli Craig
Produced by: Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, Isaac Klausner, Josh Fischer, Paris Kassidokostas-Latsis, Terry Douglas
Starring: Katie Douglas, Aaron Abrams, Carson MacCormac, Kevin Durand, Will Sasso
