CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD movie poster | ©2025 IFC Films / RLJE Films / Shudder

Rating: R
Stars: Katie Douglas, Aaron Abrams, Carson MacCormac, Vincent Muller, Kevin Durand, Will Sasso, Cassandra Potenza, Verity Marks, Ayo Solanke, Alexandre Martin Deakin, Bradley Sawatzky
Writers: Carter Blanchard and Eli Craig, based on the novel by Adam Cesare
Director: Eli Craig
Distributor: IFC Films/RLJE Films/Shudder
Release Date: May 9, 2025

CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD is based on the novel by Adam Cesare. It is deliberately patterned as a retro slasher, even though the bulk of the action takes place in the present.

A preliminary sequence is set in 1991. There is a big red barn surrounded by a field of somewhat wilted corn. Inside the barn, there’s a teen party is raging. Outside the barn, a young couple play with a jack-in-the-box, containing a creepy clown figure.

Then the couple run into the cornfield for some privacy to be intimate. Between the genre and the jack-in-the-box, it’s easy to guess what happens next.

Then a screen title announces it’s “NOW,” and we’re in the small town of Kettle Springs, Missouri. There are a lot of boarded-up businesses, but the locals are still preparing for the 100^th Founders Day Parade.

Just arriving from Philly is seventeen-year-old Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas), reluctantly moving here with her dad Glen (Aaron Abrams), because he’s accepted a job as the town’s new doctor.

Their arrival at their new house is not auspicious, with a dead animal up the chimney. Glen wants Quinn to feel at home, so he encourages her to walk to school with large, odd neighbor boy Rust (Vincent Muller).

Quinn is easily accepted by the school’s in crowd, at least partly because they’re delighted to see a new face. The group includes of rich kid Cole Hill (Carson MacCormac), pretty Janet (Cassandra Potenza), agreeable Ronnie (Verity Marks) and pranksters Tucker (Ayo Solanke) and Matt (Alexandre Martin Deakin). Rust is pointedly left out of the clique.

Quinn gets the rundown from her new friends. Cole’s father Arthur Hill (Kevin Durand) is the town oligarch, even though his factory has just burned down. Sheriff Dunne (Will Sasso) is not generally helpful, and teacher Mr. Vern (Bradley Sawatzky) actively hates his students.

Then there’s town mascot Frendo the Clown, ubiquitous on signs, labels and, yes, jack-in-the-box toys all over Kettle Springs. Cole et all have a YouTube video channel full of short films they’ve made depicting Frendo as a serial killer. They don’t, of course, think he’s really responsible for the massacre back in ’91.

There is horror precedent for the underlying plot in CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD, but director Eli Craig, working from a script he and Carter Blanchard wrote, doesn’t hew too closely to those examples. CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD is less folk horror and more SCREAM, though the characters’ genre knowledge is largely confined to observing that what’s happening seems like an ‘80s slasher (yes, we know).

To that end, Craig uses some tried-and-true techniques that are perfectly effective in this context. The filmmakers also have fun with the teen leads being flummoxed by old-fangled technology, and the specifics of the storyline provide an opportunity for some of the more seasoned cast members to go all out.

Douglas is likable and credibly determined in the lead, and she is supported capably by the rest of the cast. The variations of Frendo all look suitably menacing.

CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD doesn’t do much that’s new, nor does it seem to be attempting to do so.  However, it flows along well, has a few good twists, and has a bit of engaging insanity to recommend it.

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