The horror film “Clown in a Cornfield” has a title that certainly delivers on its promise to ticket buyers: Yes, there is scary clown action in a cornfield. But as fans of Adam Cesare‘s hit 2020 YA novel know, there’s plenty of twists below the surface we won’t spoil here — and many tell deeper truths about the heartland.
The initial plot concerns sullen teen Quinn (Katie Douglas) and her fraying bond with her depressed father (Aaron Abrams), who move to a sleepy Midwest town that is decaying after the local corn syrup factory shudders and is burned down. After falling in with a group of troublemaking teens, a clown that resembles Frendo, the factory’s mascot, begins terrorizing the town and targeting Quinn and her buddies. Yet near the midpoint of the movie, there’s a scene that plays against horror movie tropes so effectively that it acts as a reversal of everything the audience has seen so far.
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“From day one on the books I knew this was going to draw comparisons to clown horror,” Cesare says. “But this is a masked slasher story — it’s not Pennywise. It’s almost like the promise of a weird mash-up like ‘It’ meets ‘Children of the Corn’ on the cover, and then makes people say, ‘Ohh, that’s not what it is,’ but not in a bad way. It’s like you did a fun bait-and-switch once you realize what the conceit is. Then the goal with these stories is every 20 minutes, every 40 pages to switch it up.”
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“It’s this physical, silly title, but ultimately it’s also about something really deep, which is classism in America,” director and co-screenwriter Eli Craig says. “This is a movie that has all these layers of depth to it as well. I think it surprises people because it’s about the decadence and the generational anger in America that is disintegrating our society right now.”
While simple on the surface, Craig feels like the plot’s basic elements have deep ties to American history.
“Corn is an American crop, and cornfields are iconically American, and so are clowns,” he says. “Clowns are embraced by Americana in the ’30s, and as we were developing the clown we were looking at pictures of Lon Chaney from the movie “A Thousand Faces,” of clowns in the little top hats they used to wear. There’s something so sad about those happy faces. The duality of a clown is like the duality of America: It’s hopeful, and yet it’s falling to pieces at the same time, and it’s angry. There’s so much anger hidden beneath this plasticky facade of happiness.”
Craig seems like the perfect match for the material, given his history with horror satires that flip conventions on their head. His first feature was the cult hit “Tucker & Dale vs Evil,” which humanizes the backwoods hillbillies often mistaken for murderers in slashers, and “Little Evil,” a send-up of devilish kid films like “The Omen,” starring Adam Scott.
Craig says the best way to combine satire, scares and humor into a digestible package is to focus on the key emotional relationships and branch out from there.
“I love the backdrop of horror and suspense, and I love the world of horror cinematically,” he says. “It excites me as a filmmaker, but I do see the horror as more of a backdrop to tell stories about people, whether it’s comedy like ‘Tucker & Dale,’ which is ultimately about a guy overcoming his insecurities, or this movie, which is about a girl bonding with her father and overcoming some of her weaknesses to rise up and be a stronger person. I see the genre as a cool backdrop for the human story.”
Early audiences have reacted well to the genre blend of “Cornfield.” Although the film had its world premiere in March at South by Southwest, both Craig and Cesare were also present at the film’s April 5 debut at the Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans, a horror fan-focused event where the audience gave a unique jolt of energy to the screening.
“The screening here was a blast,” Craig says. “It’s such a great crowd. It feels like the right town for it, and it feels like the anti-corporate film festival because it’s so small and such a fan-based community. So it’s really fun to watch with this crowd.”
And of course, like any good slasher, fans already have sequels on the brain. Cesare is hard at work on the fourth book in the franchise, which means there are already two books written and ready to go should the duo, who became fast friends while first discussing the film, have the opportunity to further explore Quinn’s story.
“Let’s pray that this becomes a hit movie,” Craig says. “It’d be a blast to have a chance to play with a clown like Frendo again.”
“Clown in a Cornfield” will get a theatrical release via RLJE Films and Shudder on May 9. Watch the trailer below.
