Clown in a Cornfield (dir. Eli Craig)

by Jack Martin | Jun 8, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 96 mins

UK Distributor: Entertainment Film Distributors

UK Release Date: 6 June 2025

WHO’S IN CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD?

Katie Douglas, Aaron Abrams, Carson MacCormac, Kevin Durand, Will Sasso, Vincent Muller, Cassandra Potenza, Daina Leitold, Verity Marks, Ayo Solanke, Alexandre Martin Deakin, Bradley Sawatzky

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Eli Craig (director, writer), Carter Blanchard (writer), Marty Bowen, Terry Dougas, John Fischer, Wyck Godfrey and Paris Kassidokostas-Latsis (producers), Brandon Roberts and Marcus Trumpp (composers), Brian Pearson (cinematographer), Sabrina Pitre (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A town is overrun by a killer dressed as a clown…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD?

Putting a clown in a horror film is as common as putting butter on bread, which certainly hasn’t helped the coulrophobes (those with fear of clowns) of the world, especially since the likes of Pennywise and Art the Clown have become modern genre icons. Needless to say, Clown in a Cornfield isn’t going to help them out either, for the slasher film – adapted by director and co-writer Eli Craig from Adam Cesare’s horror novel of the same name – makes full use of its title, for there are indeed fields of corn that are filled with creepy smiling clown-masked killers armed with chainsaws, crossbows, cattle prods and other deadly weaponry.

Though while on the surface it looks and feels like a typical slasher, Clown in a Cornfield attracted a serious amount of buzz after its SXSW Festival debut earlier this year, with many viewers commenting on a truly surprising twist that shakes up the formula and even gives it something of a meta commentary. Having now seen the film, I do feel such buzz may have been slightly overexaggerated, for while there are a few interesting turns that the film ends up making, it’s nowhere near as genre-changing as it had been hyped up to be, and remains a fairly by-the-numbers but still fun slasher ride.

The film is set in the sleepy Midwestern town of Kettle Springs, where sullen teen Quinn (Katie Douglas) reluctantly moves to after her father Glenn (Austin Abrams) lands a job as the town’s new doctor. Against the stern warnings of the town’s adults, from incompetent sheriff Dunne (Will Sasso) to overly harsh schoolteacher Mr. Vern (Bradley Sawatzky) to Arthur Hill (Kevin Durand), a descendant of the town’s founder, Quinn quickly makes friends with a group of fellow teens, whose only crime appears to be making a series of YouTube horror videos featuring Frendo the clown, the mascot of the town’s now-defunct corn syrup factory. But soon, Quinn and her new friends find themselves at the deadly mercy of someone disguised as Frendo, whose identity eventually leads to a terrifying truth about the town and its oddly conservative adults.

Without giving too much away about where things end up going, Clown in a Cornfield isn’t an especially complex film to piece together. It spells out very early on what some of the most prominent themes and messages are, many of them revolving around the sharp generational divide between adults who seem to always harken back to “simpler” times and the more forward-thinking and considerate youth of today. In that sense, it’s also not that difficult to figure out who’s behind the carnage and why they’re doing it, forming a commentary that’s as blunt as some of the sharp-edged objects used to waste hard-partying teens, but is still entertaining to see how far over-the-top Craig and co-writer Carter Blanchard can take these ideas within its slasher setting.

The horror aspects are a bit more endearing than the slightly mean-spirited ideas behind them, since Craig brings a sadistic glee to trope-filled scenes ranging from lovingly familiar to uncomfortably outdated (sadly, this is the kind of film where the Black guy is the first one to be killed). There are some good gore effects, especially for its $1 million price tag which the movie utilises fairly well, and which more often than not adds a level of charm that few larger-funded slashers out there are able to give themselves. Craig, having previously made the cult horror-comedy Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, also incorporates a healthy amount of dark humour to moments of chaos without completely upending the overall sinister tone like one that involves its troubled teens struggling to use a rotary phone whilst trying to call the police, and a genuinely surprising romance involving two of the main cast.

On the subject of its characters, they may be far from the freshest crop of young would-be slasher survivors, but they are still fairly easy to root for, since you do enjoy their chemistry with one another as well as their individual charisma, thanks to a group of spirited performances by the likes of Katie Douglas and Carson MacCormac that nail the balance between humour and being genuinely terrified of where or when Frendo is going to spring up next. It’s fun seeing them work together to fend off against their masked assailant, and using their unique skills to try and stay one or two feet ahead of Frendo, even when it results in some of them getting brutally offed.

As a film that indulges in everything you’d expect from a slasher movie, Clown in a Cornfield does them well enough to serve as fun genre entertainment, though I can’t help but feel that more could have been done with driving home some of its biggest talking points in slightly cleverer ways. It’s not that what’s being said is bad, and in fact it’s really interesting to see such topics being raised in accessible films like this, but whether it’s due to the somewhat restrictive budget or the lack of creativity on the part of the filmmakers, you do always feel that there’s an element that’s missing which could have earned the film all that buzz it received upon its festival debut. Then again, there are follow-up books that Adam Cesare also wrote, and seeing how the film has already made a decent profit at the box office (though again, a $1 million budgeted wide release is almost bound to earn its money back), it’s possible that some unanswered elements are being reserved for potential sequels.

But even if Frendo never does emerge from that cornfield again, like some twisted alternate ending to Field of Dreams, a fun time was had with this familiar but still well-executed slasher that will undoubtedly be nightmare fuel for those with coulrophobia.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Clown in a Cornfield might be too familiar and too blunt in its messaging to earn its earlier festival buzz, but it’s still a fun slasher experience filled with some impressive gore effects and a charismatic cast that finds a neat balance between dark humour and genuine terror.