Clown in 
   a Cornfield 

Slasher Trash with Panache?

Review:JA Kerswell

What a sugar-soaked popcorn rush! Starting as a tribute to ‘90s slashers, this latest twist on the subgenre goes full Gonzo the Clown by its conclusion. A new girl in town makes friends with teenagers who pass the time making horror prank videos for YouTube. Only it seems someone has decided to turn the gags into reality, and soon, there’s a homicidal killer lurking in the cornfield for real. The film both celebrates and subverts expectations and is carried through to its wild climax by a manic, circus-like energy.
 
17-year-old Quinn (Katie Douglas) is forced to move to the Midwest town of Kettle Springs after her father (Glenn Maybrook) takes a job there as a doctor. Puzzled by the unfriendly attitude of many of the adults, she is quickly adopted into a High School clique led by the charismatic Cole (Carson MacCormac). After being pranked by the group after one of them appears to be disemboweled by someone dressed as Frendo the Clown—the mascot for the town’s syrup industry—she is initiated into their social media prank channel. However, a stunt goes wrong at the 100th anniversary Founders Day parade when one of the floats is accidentally set alight and a giant effigy of Frendo is destroyed, which leads the group to spend the afternoon in jail.

Quinn’s father forbids her to see Cole again, but he tempts her to break curfew and join him at the annual barn party out near the abandoned syrup factory, which burned down the previous year in mysterious circumstances. However, the party is cut short when a clown with murder on his mind emerges from the cornfield … 

CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD is an adaptation of Adam Cesare’s 2020 novel of the same name. A prologue set in 1991—where two horny teens are killed amongst the corn—suggests the film will be a tribute of sorts to the slasher movies that followed SCREAM (1996). And, to a certain extent, that’s true. The first half has that feel, as it fleshes out the core group of characters and starts bumping them off one by one in the grand tradition. The Founders Day parade, too, is very reminiscent of I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997).
 
However, the film switches things up at the midway-mark in a number of surprising—although not unwelcome—ways while still staying on brand for a slasher movie. The ‘90s-style WB teen drama gives way to something much more frenetic, zanier, and gorier than pretty much any of those '90s slasher movies. All subtlety goes out the window for a Big Top extravaganza of frenzied clown on teen action—with exploding heads, gushing severed arteries and bisection with a chainsaw to name just a few of the gory delights. It’s like a custard pie fight with offal.
Although this switch to a Wurlitzer-style mayhem arguably tips towards out-and-out humour, for the most part, the film doesn’t play as a slasher comedy as such, but rather as a popcorn slasher with humour. This humour comes from things such as two characters unable to call for help because they don’t know how to use a rotary phone—to much darker comedy touches, including a scene where a real severed human head is tossed around because it is thought to be a prank one.
 
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD is directed by Eli Craig, who gave us the similarly madcap, slasher adjacent TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL (2010). He is the son of Sally Field, the actress who was the first choice to play Alice in the original FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)—there’s some symmetry there for sure. In common with many slasher films before it, the film passes off its Canadian roots as the Midwestern United States, although it is listed as a US production. 
 
The cast is great, and the film looks polished—and I’m happy to report that much of the second half of the movie is given over to extended chase scenes. And, really, a clown with a chainsaw running through a cornfield is never going to get old. A surprising gay twist is just the cherry on top of the blood-soaked popcorn. 

BODY COUNT 16: 
Female 5 / Male 11

1. Female found with a head wound
2. Male is impaled on a pitchfork
3. Male has his throat slashed with a knife
4. Male is decapitated with a saw
5. Female is found with sickle in her back
6. Male is shot through the head with an arrow
7. Female is run through with a chainsaw
8. Male is found dead
9. Female is run through with a pitchfork
10. Male​ is run through with a pitchfork
11. Male dies from wounds
12. Male is stabbed in the neck with a penknife
13. Male's head splattered
14. Female is impaled
15. Male has a cattle prod forced down his throat
16. Male is splattered by a car

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