‘Clown In A Cornfield’ Is A Pitch-Good Teenage Slasher [Review]

Adam Cesare’s 2020 YA Clown In A Cornfield reinvents and honors the slasher whereas additionally proving that YA is barely a label. Simply because a lot of these books are written with a sure age in thoughts doesn’t imply they will’t handle mature themes and stunning violence. Co-writer and director Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil) brings that spirit to life within the adaptation of Clown In A Cornfield, which is an ideal rated-R teen slasher filled with snarky teenagers, nasty kills, and one bloodthirsty clown. 

We open in 1991 in Kettle Springs, Missouri with a scene like one thing out of Jaws as a drunk lady at a celebration lures a drunk boy away from the gang with the promise of intercourse. However as an alternative of diving into the water, she stumbles into an enormous cornfield, with the boy rapidly following after her. However in fact, there’s a masked predator hiding within the stalks and so they rapidly dispatch their prey. Don’t fuck with Frendo, certainly.

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The opening set in 1991 rapidly hints on the cyclical nature of Frendo, establishing him as doubtlessly extra than simply your common serial killer. This can be a essential change between novel to movie as Craig units up a really completely different framing than seen on the web page. He shifts the main focus from a collective trauma to a extra normal historical past of demise. That is the primary marker of the movie’s greatest drawback: a scarcity of time spent on giving its core characters the identical emotional depth seen within the novel.

Then we flash ahead to now, when Quinn Maybrook (a superbly solid Katie Douglas) and her dad Glen Maybrook (Aaron Abrams) are transferring to Kettle Springs from Philadelphia. After the traumatic demise of her mom, the household of two is on the lookout for a brand new begin in the course of nowhere. Effectively, no less than Glen is. Quinn is dragged alongside for the trip and compelled to make new pals on this unusual new place. Extra particularly, Kettle Springs is a dying city after the Baypen Corn Syrup Manufacturing facility burned down, leaving lots of its residents jobless and hopeless. Importantly, the manufacturing unit’s outdated mascot was a creepy clown named Frendo.

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Nevertheless it solely will get worse from there. As she befriends native teenagers Cole (Carson MacCormac), Janet (Cassandra Potenza), Ronnie (Verity Marks), Tucker (Ayo Solanke), and Matt (Alexandre Martin Deakin) (in addition to awkward neighbor Rust (Vincent Muller)), she learns about their prank channel on YouTube and the way a lot the city’s adults detest the teenage inhabitants. The strain is obvious as quickly as Quinn units foot on the town, a state of affairs viable to blow up at any second.

After a disastrous Founders Day—an annual Kettle Springs custom—tensions are working excessive however that doesn’t cease the city’s teenagers from throwing the annual barn bash, full with DJ, infinite buckets of beer, and strategically positioned fireplace pits all on the sting of a cornfield. Because the drinks circulation and music blasts, Frendo (or no less than somebody dressed as him) emerges from the corn armed with a crossbow. From there, Clown In A Cornfield devolves into bloody chaos as teenagers are annihilated with grotesque ease. This isn’t Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees armed with knives or machetes. This s a killer clown unafraid of heavy artillery.

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Between Cesare’s descriptive writing within the novel and Craig’s personal expertise crafting memorable moments of gore, Clown In A Cornfield is chock filled with gnarly kills with a large number of inventive instruments every extra outlandish than the subsequent. The largest draw back is an overreliance on CG blood. Understandably, sacrifices should be made when making an indie slasher and generally you need to go the digital route. It’s nonetheless a bit distracting, particularly throughout in any other case completely nasty sequences of violence. Regardless, that inventive coronary heart and love of the slasher are there, splattered throughout the display screen.

Sadly, the love of the style overshadows a deeper have a look at the damaged characters on the story’s core. Whereas, like with sensible results, sacrifices should be made with adapting a novel and never the whole lot will make it into the script, extra time might have been spent attending to know Quinn and her fellow traumatized teenagers earlier than diving into the motion. Whereas the movie does arrange its emotional stakes comparatively properly, a deeper have a look at the movie’s youngsters would assist strengthen these stakes, particularly as we get to know Quinn.

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Then, there’s Frendo’s costume design. His masks is downright menacing with no makes an attempt at uncanny pleasure. As a substitute, the masks is virtually stuffed with disdain together with his furrowed forehead and big grin. His costume can be very raveled and vintage-looking, making him seem like a relic from the previous, an otherworldly determine who’s arisen from the corn, looking for blood. However simply wait and see what Craig has in retailer for Quinn and her merry band of YouTubers.

Talking of YouTubers, Craig and cinematographer Brian Pearson discover methods to make use of discovered footage methods by first-person POV prank movies and doorbells with cameras. This solely solidifies the movie’s digital anxieties and obsessions with filming and capturing manipulated fact. I solely want there had been much more of those moments all through the remainder of the movie.

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In a 2020 assertion to Bloody Disgusting in regards to the debut of his novel, Clown In A Cornfield, Cesare mentioned, “I needed to don’t a lot a throwback slasher as an try at a contemporary slasher with fashionable themes.” With this adaptation, Craig and his co-writer Carter Blanchard embody that very spirit, utilizing slasher tropes to succeed in a contemporary teenage viewers with out being afraid of treating them like adults. That is Scream for the digital period: a darkish horror comedy unafraid of slaughtering its darlings within the identify of skewering a collapsing society. 

Hopefully there’s sufficient turnout and love for this movie that Shudder and IFC tackle adapting the opposite two books. Craig has proved his love for the fabric and I’d like to see the place he takes Quinn and her nightmarish Frendo fiascos. 

Clown In A Cornfield had its world premiere at SXSW 2025 and involves theaters on Might 9, 2025.

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