cross-posted from: https://atomicpoet.org/objects/d329878f-a68d-44c2-bd84-8fc1275e70f1
Clown in a Cornfield (2025) is a horror movie about a teenage girl who moves to a small town that’s split between old-timers and high school kids—then gets confronted by a clown.
She falls in with a group of friends, and just as life starts to settle, the town’s history comes roaring back in the worst way possible. A clown mascot named Frendo steps out of the cornfields, and suddenly those kids are being hunted down one by one.
The reason I watched this is because I often have this mentality: one plus one equals two. Take one horror premise—Children of the Corn—combine it with It. What do you get? Clown in a Cornfield. So why not go hog wild, right?
Wildly enough, this didn’t start from some B-movie producer’s imagination. It was a novel first—Adam Cesare’s 2020 book—and now it’s an adaptation. The director is Eli Craig, the same guy who made Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, one of the best horror spoofs I’ve ever seen. Incredibly witty and clever. I hoped to see that same wit here. Spoiler alert: no, you don’t.
The core problem is that it tries too hard to do the self-aware teen thing, where characters seem to know they’re in a horror movie. But Scream already did this decades ago—much better. You’re not going to top Scream. And by now, the self-aware horror movie is as much of a cliché as the movies it lampoons.
Where it really goes wrong is the characters. They’re stock, and being self-aware doesn’t excuse that. You’ve got the Black kid who dies first, the snobby popular girls, the rich bad boy, the hick. Later in the film they try to throw a curveball, but it doesn’t land—by then the movie's lurching towards the end, and the relationships aren’t developed enough.
If you’re going to do something like this, the movie has to be clever. This one isn’t. The stock characters never break out of their molds.
That said, Will Sasso as the sheriff was excellent—the highlight of the film for me, though he doesn’t get much screen time.
The clown costumes, designed from Keith Lau’s concept art, were fun and creepy enough to make me giggle. A few kills, like the bench-press scene, were imaginative. But that’s about as good as it got.
The shoot had its quirks. Filmed in Winnipeg in fall 2023, the crew had to use blowtorches to melt snow after a blizzard so it would still look like autumn. Craig stacked the cast and crew with Canadians after moving to North Vancouver and even taking Canadian citizenship, so the whole thing has a half-Hollywood, half-Winnipeg vibe.
The marketing leaned into the gimmick. A week before wide release, they did drive-in-only previews with author signings and posters. Then came the “Frendo Across America” semi-truck tour, rolling up to landmarks with the clown mascot in tow.
It’s not a bad film—there are plenty worse with the same tropes. But because this was Eli Craig, I had high expectations. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil proved he could twist horror with wit. Here, those expectations just weren’t met.
Do I recommend it? Meh. Not a total waste of time, but you could watch better movies.
Where to watch:
Prime Video: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0GVJCCJDSJI8PS821VSPHOHTQU
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