Clowns walk a thin line between children’s entertainment and horror nightmares. The latest bringing the terror of the big top to the big screen is Clown in a Cornfield starring Katie Douglas, Carson MacCormac, Aaron Abrams, Will Sasso, and Kevin Durand from Tucker and Dale vs Evil director Eli Craig. Could this latest entry in the slasher subgenre deliver what fans hope for or will it get lost in the fields?

 

Clown in a Cornfield follows Quinn and her father who have just moved to the quiet town of Kettle Springs hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she discovers a fractured community that has fallen on hard times after the treasured Baypen Corn Syrup Factory burned down. As the locals bicker amongst themselves and tensions boil over, a sinister, grinning figure emerges from the cornfields to cleanse the town of its burdens, one bloody victim at a time. Welcome to Kettle Springs. The real fun starts when Frendo the clown comes out to play.

 

With so many horror films, especially slashers, getting released straight to home media I get hesitant on trying them out. This is one that kept hitting my radar, but I never initially gave it the time it deserved until I realized that Eli Craig had directed it. I am so glad I did as it ended up being way more bloody fun than I had expected. It reminded me a lot of Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving in the buildup, but clearly its own thing.

 

The film plays out kind of like Scream with a who is the killer mystery and all the usual annoying teens primed for slaughter. It’s pretty by the numbers most of the time but brings enough good fun kills and a creepy enough killer to get the gorehounds invested. As it was it would have worked just standing on the bloody fun, but it offered up a fun twist that elevates the film to both ridiculous and excellent all at once.