Slasherpopcorn!
Clowns are always scary and a clown with a fake smile mask, squeaky shoes and a chainsaw is always a recipe for blood dripping havoc. From the producers of Smile comes Clown in a Cornfield taking firm aim at young horror audiences and slasher movie enthusiasts and is a fairly decent tourniquet soaking excursion into the genre.
Drawing upon the first of the three book series by Adam Cesare of the same name, writer Carter Blanchard and Director Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs Evil and Little Evil), have rich (red), if well trodden, material and have great fun in delivering this splatterfest adventure.
Set in Kettle Springs in “flyover country” USA, father and daughter, Doctor Glenn and Quinn Maybrook move to the town from Philadelphia in the wake of the trauma from the overdose death of their wife and mother . They find a community fallen on hard times since the burning down of the cherished Baypen Corn Syrup Factory. Quinn is immediately befriended by a group of rebellious school friends who are becoming internet famous through a series of YouTube videos mimicking and mocking the local legend of the factory’s eerie clown mascot, Frendo. The videos portray Frendo as a menacing slaying murderer enacting bloody carnage. The youth unfriendly townsfolk are annoyed by the videos believing that the making of one of them may have caused the burning down of the factory and their ensuing misfortune. Soon after the real Frendo appears and the splatter begins.
Katie Douglas, best known for her role as Abby Littman in the Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia and Jackie Sullivan in Pretty Hard Cases, performs well as Quinn, which is just as well as she is in most of the scenes. Likewise Carson MacCormac, known for his role in Shazam! and Shazam! Fury of Gods, delivers a good performance as Cole. Supporting them well is Aaron Abrams of Special Agent Brian Zelle from Hannibal fame, Kevin Durand of The Blob from X-Men Origins Wolverine and Proximus Caesar from Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes fame, and the rest of the young cast.
Clown in a Cornfield does not try to reinvent the cut and slash horror genre and even holds its influences in full light, it does however have great fun with the genre providing impressively gory murders often splendidly humorous. In the wake of the new realities of the political order of the US it even provides a delightful small twist near the end.
Clown in a Cornfield opens this weekend.
Reviewed by Rob McKinnon
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