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Los Angeles Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
A generic teens-in-peril slasher, ‘Clown in a Cornfield' can't cut the crop
Is there anything as dependable as the slasher formula? It waxes, wanes and winks its way through cultural cycles but it endures; malleable yet sturdy, high or lowbrow (usually low), requiring just a few key elements: some teenagers and a masked killer. A small town would be nice. Change up the costumes and the weapons and it practically writes itself. Enter 'Clown in a Cornfield' from 'Tucker & Dale vs. Evil' filmmaker Eli Craig. This slasher does exactly what it says on the tin: A murderous clown emerges from the cornfields of Kettle Springs, Mo. and mauls misbehaving teens to shreds. In an opening prologue set in 1991, Craig signals the silliness with which we should enjoy the film: A future victim marvels at the size of a footprint in the damp soil and the clown's shoes give him away with a squeak as he impales our unfortunate soul. What sets this particular movie apart is its provenance, adapted from a 2020 horror novel by Adam Cesare. That literary origin does give this otherwise light, disposable genre romp a bit more heft, though the backstory and generational history that's alluded to isn't entirely explored onscreen. Craig and Carter Blanchard collaborated on the screenplay adaptation, and the film relies on the kind of quickie reveals and twists that audiences would expect from this kind of thing. Craig is self-reflective while being appropriately reverent to the tropes of the genre. The closest recent comparison would be Eli Roth's 'Thanksgiving,' another outrageously costumed killer movie, and while Craig doesn't have Roth's gleefully sadistic creativity when it comes to kills, his teens are a bit more fun to be around, especially the snarky Quinn (Katie Douglas), who moves to Kettle Springs with her doctor dad (Aaron Abrams) and immediately falls in with a group of popular YouTube-obsessed classmates who make horror films on their phones about their town mascot, Frendo, of the corn syrup factory. Quinn starts crushing on Cole (Carson MacCormac), the scion of the town's founders. Every year, they celebrate tradition with the Founder's Day parade, foregrounding Frendo's iconic visage. But it seems as soon as Quinn shows up, things start to go wrong. Teens start turning up dead, evil clowns start revving their chainsaws. It's initially challenging to tell what's real and what's an elaborate prank. There's a theme that drifts through 'Clown in a Cornfield' about teens and their phones and how we live our lives through screens and ever-present cameras, but Craig never fully threads that needle. At a time when it's increasingly difficult to discern what's real and what's not, especially on our phones, that more sophisticated story never gets told, in favor of more throwback-style bloodbaths and showboating bad-guy speeches. 'Clown in a Cornfield' is fun, to be sure, but feels about as substantial as a corn puff. Douglas is beguiling enough with her humorous, spunky performance, and MacCormac capably keeps up with her. Will Sasso and Kevin Durand are welcome supporting players as a few of the oddly aggressive town elders. While things get a little too 'Scooby-Doo' at times, Craig smartly keeps it moving: This is a light and breezy affair with a few unexpected twists, some social commentary that doesn't entirely land and not enough staying power to be truly memorable. Ah, well: Cesare already has two sequel novels published, so there's already plenty more Frendo the Clown ready to be harvested. Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
Gizmodo
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Clown in a Cornfield Lives Up to That Tremendous Title
Clown in a Cornfield is such a succinct yet evocative title for a horror movie. Your villain and your setting are right there, plus all the awful connotations your imagination can whip up regarding both. Eli Craig's new slasher has a lot to live up to with a title like that, but the director of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil knows what he's doing. He's got all the ingredients: appealing characters, a small town with a huge secret, a ghoulish killer, and an underlying message that makes sure the film is about more than just a killer clown splattering victims around a cornfield—though rest assured, there's still plenty of that. After a preface set in 1991 that immediately delivers—kids partying in a cornfield are ambushed by a maniac with very large shoes—we cut to the present day and get a closer look at Kettle Springs, Missouri, a farm town that's fallen on hard times since the Baypen Brand Corn Syrup factory closed. The company's mascot, a grinning clown named 'Frendo,' still looms over the town as a reminder of more prosperous days. More recently, desperately bored local teens have cast him as the masked killer in horror shorts they put out on YouTube. The sleepy rural community soon adds two new residents: Quinn (Ginny & Georgia's Katie Douglas) and her father (Aaron Abrams). He's accepted the job of town doctor, figuring that after the sudden loss of Quinn's mother, the pair could use a fresh start. Though she quickly befriends the YouTube clique, Quinn's not thrilled about relocating to Nowheresville, especially as she picks up on how hostile the older residents are toward the local teenagers. But there's not much time to marinate on that as things get going; Clown in a Cornfield takes place over just a few days and nights, and a good amount of screen time is given over to red-nosed, red-wigged terror, wielding chainsaws, crossbows, cattle prods, and other conveniently available implements of destruction. Despite that title, and despite Craig being the guy behind the cult-beloved Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, Clown in a Cornfield is actually less of a comedy than you might think. There are witty, self-referential lines—the script is by Craig and Carter Blanchard, adapted from the novel by Adam Cesare—but Frendo is not to be fucked with, as one character cautions Quinn. Whoever's under the mask is ruthless and furious, and Clown in a Cornfield engages in some sly misdirection about the killer's ID as more and more bodies pile up. Throughout the film, Clown in a Cornfield pulls on the threads of that generation-gap conflict and even brings technology in as part of it. Quinn's new friends love making videos and being online, but they're surrounded by adults who don't see the point of even the most basic progress. (One of the funniest scenes, teased in the film's trailer, is a crisis that occurs when the only way to call for help involves a rotary phone.) The motivation behind Frendo's slaughter ties into this divide, and if the pieces don't quite completely fit together at the end, Clown in a Cornfield has by then built up a lot of energetic goodwill. It ultimately proves itself to be a mostly straightforward slasher film—complete with many of the expected tropes, including pleasingly gruesome gore—with some clever and subversive jabs along the way. Clown in a Cornfield also stars Kevin Durand, Will Sasso, Carson MacCormac, Vincent Muller, Cassandra Potenzo, and Verity Marks. It hits theaters May 9.
Wall Street Journal
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
Arts Calendar: Happenings for the Week of May 4
• 'Friendship' (May 9): Making friends is hard—and especially difficult when you're an adult—but when a charismatic neighbor moves in next to an average suburban dad, the quest for camaraderie causes chaos in both men's lives. Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd headline Andrew DeYoung's comedy. • 'Clown in a Cornfield' (May 9): Filmmaker Eli Craig, who directed the cult horror comedy 'Tucker & Dale vs. Evil,' returns with a slasher about a town mascot with a hunger for violence.
