Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Eli Craig
Starring: Katie Douglas, Carson MacCormac, Aaron Abrams, Will Sasso, Kevin
Durand
A title like Clown in a Cornfield will probably have burnt-out horror fans rolling their eyes in
expectation of yet another cheap It/Terrifier knockoff cynically made to cash in on coulrophobia. But this is
from director Eli Craig, who cleverly subverted the
Hicksploitation sub-genre with his 2010 debut Tucker and Dale Vs Evil. Adapting a Young Adult novel by Adam Cesare, Craig once
again lures us in with recognisable horror tropes, only to pull the rug
out from under our expectations.
The movie kicks off in recognisable slasher territory with a 1991-set
prologue in which a pair of horny teens in the small Missouri town of
Kettle Springs are butchered by, you guessed it, a clown in a cornfield.
The clown in question appears to be the life-size manifestation of
Frendo, the mascot of the town's now defunct corn syrup factory.
Cut to the present day, where we meet our teenage heroine Quinn (Katie Douglas). Months after the death of her mother, Quinn has been uprooted from
Philadelphia and brought to Kettle Springs by her father Glenn (Aaron Abrams), who has taken the post of the town's new doctor. The first of her
new peers Quinn encounters is redneck Rust (Vincent Muller), who
warns her to be careful who she makes friends with, as there are a lot
of "weirdos" in Kettle Springs. Ignoring Rust's warning, Quinn
immediately falls in with a group of rebellious teens who entertain
themselves by staging and filming pranks in which one of them dresses up
as Frendo and pretends to murder the others. Fiction soon becomes
reality when the members of this group are offed one by one by someone
in a Frendo costume, with each murder preceded by the marked victim
discovering a Frendo-themed jack-in-the-box.
So far so slasher. The first half of Clown in a Cornfield sets up a rather run of the mill post-Scream scenario, asking us to try to guess who is behind the Frendo
mask, with various potential suspects put in place. And if that was all
Craig's film was offering it would be perfectly fine, as this is one of
the better examples of the modern slasher movie. But at roughly the
midway point there's a twist that sends the narrative in an entirely new
direction, switching it from a standard slasher movie to something else
entirely.
Craig has a gift for naturally blending horror and comedy, and he
skilfully balances both disciplines to good effect here. The kills are
outrageously vicious and bloody (it's not a coincidence that the Frendo
factory specialised in corn syrup), but the film recognises how silly
its premise really is and has a lot of fun mining it for gruesome laughs
with clever sight gags that wouldn't be out of place in a Scooby Doo
cartoon or an Abbot & Costello meet the monsters comedy.
At the same time we're invested in what is a more likeable group of
teenage protagonists than such movies usually offer. Too many slasher
movies force us to root for the villain by giving us a bunch of
obnoxious young jerks as potential victims. Having upended redneck
stereotypes with Tucker and Dale Vs Evil, Craig rehabilitates his teenage slasher victims here, playing on the
prejudices we're usually exposed to in American horror movies. This is a
movie aimed squarely at a teenage audience but it also has fun mocking
Gen-Z's reliance on the convenience of technology, with some great gags
about teens being unable to drive stick or dial a number on a rotary
phone in moments of trouble.
The young cast and their characters play a key role in making this
work. Douglas's Quinn is far spunkier than the sort of shrinking violet
final girl stereotype we're accustomed to, and Craig defies slasher
convention by making her sexually forthright. As Quinn's potential love
interest, bad boy Cole, Carson MacCormac will have
adults shouting at the screen for Quinn to avoid this Jordan Catalano
wannabe, but once again Craig has a surprise up his sleeve with this
character that makes us question our judgement. Muller's Rust channels
school shooter vibes, but we suspect there's more to him than meets the
eye.
Craig and co-writer Carter Blanchard manage to create
well-rounded protagonists without ever getting bogged down in
unnecessary backstory, and the movie zips along at a rapid pace. The
final scene hints at more to come, and Cesare's source novel is but the
first in a trilogy. In Quinn we have a final girl who may well take her
place alongside such icons as Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott if a
trilogy does indeed come to fruition. With Clown in a Cornfield arriving on the heels of Final Destination Bloodlines and Fear Street: Prom Queen, this summer's crop of horror movies is bringing the fun back to the
genre.
Clown in a Cornfield is in
UK/ROI cinemas from June 6th.
