Move Over, Art: ‘Clown In A Cornfield’ Is A Pitch-Perfect Teenage Slasher [SXSW 2025 Review]
Adam Cesare’s 2020 YA Clown In A Cornfield reinvents and honors the slasher while also proving that YA is only a label. Just because these types of books are written with a certain age in mind doesn’t mean they can’t address mature themes and shocking violence. Co-writer and director Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil) brings that spirit to life in the adaptation of Clown In A Cornfield, which is a perfect rated-R teen slasher full of snarky teens, nasty kills, and one bloodthirsty clown.
We open in 1991 in Kettle Springs, Missouri with a scene like something out of Jaws as a drunk girl at a party lures a drunk boy away from the crowd with the promise of sex. But instead of diving into the water, she stumbles into a massive cornfield, with the boy quickly following after her. But of course, there’s a masked predator hiding in the stalks and they quickly dispatch their prey. Don’t fuck with Frendo, indeed.
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The opening set in 1991 quickly hints at the cyclical nature of Frendo, establishing him as potentially more than just your average serial killer. This is a crucial change between novel to film as Craig sets up a very different framing than seen on the page. He shifts the focus from a collective trauma to a more general history of death. This is the first marker of the film’s biggest problem: a lack of time spent on giving its core characters the same emotional depth seen in the novel.
Then we flash forward to now, when Quinn Maybrook (a perfectly cast Katie Douglas) and her dad Glen Maybrook (Aaron Abrams) are moving to Kettle Springs from Philadelphia. After the traumatic death of her mother, the family of two is looking for a new start in the middle of nowhere. Well, at least Glen is. Quinn is dragged along for the ride and forced to make new friends in this strange new place. More specifically, Kettle Springs is a dying town after the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory burned down, leaving many of its residents jobless and hopeless. Importantly, the factory’s old mascot was a creepy clown named Frendo.
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But it only gets worse from there. As she befriends local teens Cole (Carson MacCormac), Janet (Cassandra Potenza), Ronnie (Verity Marks), Tucker (Ayo Solanke), and Matt (Alexandre Martin Deakin) (as well as awkward neighbor Rust (Vincent Muller)), she learns about their prank channel on YouTube and how much the town’s adults detest the teenage population. The tension is apparent as soon as Quinn sets foot in town, a situation viable to explode at any moment.
After a disastrous Founders Day—an annual Kettle Springs tradition—tensions are running high but that doesn’t stop the town’s teens from throwing the annual barn bash, complete with DJ, endless buckets of beer, and strategically placed fire pits all on the edge of a cornfield. As the drinks flow and music blasts, Frendo (or at least someone dressed as him) emerges from the corn armed with a crossbow. From there, Clown In A Cornfield devolves into bloody chaos as teens are annihilated with grotesque ease. This isn’t Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees armed with knives or machetes. This s a killer clown unafraid of heavy artillery.
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Between Cesare’s descriptive writing in the novel and Craig’s own experience crafting memorable moments of gore, Clown In A Cornfield is chock full of gnarly kills with a multitude of creative tools each more outlandish than the next. The biggest downside is an overreliance on CG blood. Understandably, sacrifices need to be made when making an indie slasher and sometimes you have to go the digital route. It’s still a bit distracting, especially during otherwise perfectly nasty sequences of violence. Regardless, that creative heart and love of the slasher are there, splattered across the screen.
Unfortunately, the love of the genre overshadows a deeper look at the broken characters at the story’s core. While, like with practical effects, sacrifices have to be made with adapting a novel and not everything will make it into the script, more time could have been spent getting to know Quinn and her fellow traumatized teens before diving into the action. While the film does set up its emotional stakes relatively well, a deeper look at the film’s teenagers would help strengthen those stakes, especially as we get to know Quinn.
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Then, there’s Frendo’s costume design. His mask is downright menacing with no attempts at uncanny joy. Instead, the mask is practically filled with disdain with his furrowed brow and massive grin. His costume is also very disheveled and vintage-looking, making him appear like a relic from the past, an otherworldly figure who’s arisen from the corn, searching for blood. But just wait and see what Craig has in store for Quinn and her merry band of YouTubers.
Speaking of YouTubers, Craig and cinematographer Brian Pearson find ways to use found footage techniques through first-person POV prank videos and doorbells with cameras. This only solidifies the film’s digital anxieties and obsessions with filming and capturing manipulated truth. I only wish there had been even more of these moments throughout the rest of the film.
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In a 2020 statement to Bloody Disgusting about the debut of his novel, Clown In A Cornfield, Cesare said, “I wanted to do not so much a throwback slasher as an attempt at a modern slasher with modern themes.” With this adaptation, Craig and his co-writer Carter Blanchard embody that very spirit, using slasher tropes to reach a modern teenage audience without being afraid of treating them like adults. This is Scream for the digital era: a dark horror comedy unafraid of slaughtering its darlings in the name of skewering a collapsing society.
Hopefully there’s enough turnout and love for this film that Shudder and IFC take on adapting the other two books. Craig has proved his love for the material and I’d love to see where he takes Quinn and her nightmarish Frendo fiascos.
Clown In A Cornfield had its world premiere at SXSW 2025 and comes to theaters on May 9, 2025.
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Clown In A Cornfield (2025)
Summary
‘Clown In A Cornfield’ is ‘Scream’ for the digital era: a dark horror comedy unafraid of slaughtering its darlings in the name of skewering a collapsing society.
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