CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD (2025)

One of the things i like about social media is the ability to see how much people love a product they produced and continue to support it. As a writer, it’s extraordinarily hard to promote something you’ve produced because a lot of social media is a visual media rather than a literary one (yes, I’m aware that most posts have accompanying text but most people, me included, see it as supplemental to the story/ reel/ post etc). Writer have a tough job because a photo of their work, unless it’s published and the visual attraction of the cover is present, is difficult.

Unless you’re prepared to do that horrible thing of hustling, something I’m terrible at!

Adam Cesare, the writer of the novel Clown in a Cornfield and its two sequels, is amazing at it. His Instagram posts are full of his live appearances, the promotion of his work and the utter joy he has is seeing his words be made into living breathing creatures in this film, the aforementioned Clown in a Cornfield.

I have to have a brief aside here where I have to compliment Cesare on the title. It’s is so profoundly ridiculous but somehow instills terror. Clowns have, for a long time, been more associated with fear than fun, and the cornfield gives feelings of being lost. It’s so clever.

Clown in a Cornfield was directed by Eli Craig, a director who is responsible for a horror comedy that I rate quite highly, the wonderful and hilarious Tucker and Dale Vs Evil (2010). Now even though there is some levity in this film, it does have some fantastic gore and some genuine scares and shocks, which I really enjoyed!

Clown in a Cornfield tells of Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) and her father, Glenn (Aaron Abrams) who have moved to the town of Kettle Springs, Missouri to help heal after the death of her mother, Samantha.

On her first day at school, Quinn is warned by a neighbour, Rust (Vincent Muller) about getting ‘in’ with the wrong kids, she immediately does, and those kids include Cole (Carson MacCormac), Janet (Cassandra Potenza), Ronnie (Verity Marks), Matt (Alexandre Martin Deakin) and Tucker ( Ayo Solanke), who have a bad reputation due to their YouTube videos where they make little horror movies about town legend, Frendo the Clown, a killer who stalks (excuse the pun) the cornfields in search of victims.

Something the kids find own very quickly though is that Frendo is very real, and he’s very VERY upset with the youth of the town, and the killings begin, but who is it? Is Frendo a generational serial killer or is something more sinister?

Craig has done an amazing job with this film for a couple of reasons. The casting is fantastic, and there’s some nice shifting of romantic interests which whist may be a bit jarring to some, was quite organic, if not a little tropey. Craig also worked on the screenplay with Carter Blanchard and they took the source material and treated it with respect, especially when you consider the setting and feel of the book, and they also gave it a tidy 80s or 90s styled time of 96 or so minutes. A 4 hour action blockbuster full of superheroes and aliens may be ok, but sometimes a story can be over-told for no reason other than hubris, and this definitely wasn’t done here.

Back to the cast though, they are the driving force behind the story. Even though they also may fulfil some horror movies late-teen tropes, they are executed brilliantly (again excuse the pun). I have to admit that Kevin Durand, who I think is quite underrated, and Will Sasso were nice surprises in their roles as the mayor, and Cole’s father, and the town sheriff respectively.

The gore was surprising and so well done, and the costume design of Frendo looked amazing. It could have very easy been a copy of Pennywise, but seeing as how the characters origin was tied into the origin of the town, it had a really great mid-20th century circus vibe to it.

Whilst the film isn’t perfect, which is only due to some of the elements of the story which borrow elements from the absolute history of horror, there’s a lot to love. Recommended.

Extras: Nothing at all, which is a shame considering Cesare’s consistent promotion on social media.

Film: 7/10

Extras: 0/10

Rewatchability: 9/10

This movie was purchased from Jb Hifi