“Clown in a Cornfield” attempts to shift the expectations around the modern slasher film, keeping viewers on their toes about what’s actually going on in this small town that appears to be under assault from a murderous clown. A sort of “It” meets “Scream” energy courses through Eli Craig’s film, one that’s clever and thrilling enough in bloody spurts, even if it never quite reaches its true potential. Like the kids at its core who use horror imagery for likes, it’s ultimately a bit shallower than it should have been. Not unlike actual clowns, it’s kinda creepy and kinda funny, but often not enough of either. Still, genre fans should be happy enough with some of the quality kills from the “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” director. Sometimes, that’s what really matters most for a film like this one. After all, everybody loves a clown.
Working with co-writer Carter Blanchard, Craig adapts the novel of the same name by Adam Cesare, a tale that will echo Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving” in its mingling of a town’s dark history with the young people trying to write their own futures. “Ginny & Georgia” star Katie Douglas makes an effective scream queen as the Sidney Prescott of this tale, Quinn Maybrook, who has moved from Philadelphia to the factory town of Kettle Springs, Missouri. This place suffered the economic decline that afflicted so many cities in this country when the factory closed. In this case, it’s not coal or auto but something sweeter: The Baypen Corn Syrup Factory, which closed and then burned in an act of arson, blamed on town bad boy Cole Hill (Carson MacCormac) and his friends, including Matt (Alexandre Martin Deakin), Tucker (Ayo Solanke), Trudy (Daina Leitold), and Janet (Cassandra Potenza). One of many slight shifts here is that the group that would be the most popular kids in most slasher pics are looked at as enemies by everyone in town.
Cole and his friends have distorted the image of Baypen's figurehead, a smiling clown named Frendo, by making viral videos in which the cheery clown turns violent. This hasn't helped Cole's claims of innocence. Quinn begins a flirtation with Cole that her doctor dad (Aaron Abrams) considers dangerous because of what Sheriff Dunne (Will Sasso) says about this group of clown-loving outsiders after an encounter with a teacher who is clearly targeting these teens brings Quinn into the same net. As Kevin Durand prowls the scenery as Cole’s wealthy father, things get weird and bloody. Has Frendo actually come to life as a Pennywise-esque villain? Or is there another issue at hand? “Clown in a Cornfield” builds to an impressive sequence when a teen party “goes Shudder” with increasingly insane deaths. The energy in these sequences and the other death scenes in “Clown” are just about enough. However, I was still hoping the thrills would build to something a bit more satisfying than the blunt exposition dump that literally follows someone asking what is happening in the final act here. It’s hard to write about some of the underdeveloped themes of “Cornfield” without spoiling it, so forgive the vagueness, but I found Craig’s film much more interesting when it was just allowed to be chaotic instead of when it was explaining the chaos.
Of course, it’s no spoiler to say that the old-fashioned community around them misunderstands Cole, Quinn, and their buddies. That’s a common horror theme, especially the ones that influenced this project: The kids will have to be alright on their own because the generation before them sold them out, are useless, or both. Craig employs charming young actors, particularly the excellent Douglas, wisely in his film. After that, he fights them off with a supporting cast of rude, useless adults (aside from Quinn's father, who is played well by Abrams). If parts of “Clown in a Cornfield” feel undercooked, it’s almost forgivable for not just the bloody make-up work but where the film lands: The real clowns are the people trying to hold the next generation back.