‘Clown in a Cornfield’ review – A very corny slasher

While the scary clown character can be too on the nose for most horror movies nowadays, Clown in a Cornfield doesn’t care for subtlety. In both words and violence, Eli Craig’s adaptation of Adam Cesare’s YA novel is blunt. And anyone looking for a no-frills but also not-so-typical slasher is bound to find some satisfaction here. Even the social commentary of the source material feels underweight and overshadowed once it’s translated on the screen.

Slashers aren’t always the most fleshy movies from the horror genre, but Clown in a Cornfield feels particularly lean. Craig (Dale and Tucker vs. Evil) and co-writer Carter Blanchard definitely took a cleaver to the book’s parts, although more or less, they stayed true to what Cesare imagined. Not every adaptation of teen lit, horror or otherwise, can claim that.

This story doesn’t really require an outsider to investigate the mystery in store, seeing as how the young residents of Kettle Springs, Missouri are just as oblivious to the goings-on as Katie Douglas’ character. Nevertheless, the new kid in town soon finds herself on the business end of a pitchfork and running for her life through the titular cornfields. Before that point, however, Quinn and her recently widowered father (Aaron Abrams) are having the usual hard time adjusting to smalltown life, after leaving the big city and coping with the loss that drove them to this jerkwater. The setup is as hackneyed as they come, but give it time and Clown in a Cornfield will deliver at least a few surprises.

The plot change-up can’t come soon enough, because Quinn’s new friends, as well as herself, are annoying, unpleasant, and generally not fun to watch. Ambushing theirs and the other young folks’ party with clown-masked killers is a much-needed magic bullet, especially if you’re like me and your tolerance for surly and generic teens is beginning to run low. The ensuing chaos, not to mention gruesome violence, is a solid distraction.

Cesare’s story, as well as the adaptation, does a mediocre job of hiding the killers’ identities, but the mystery isn’t the point of Clown in a Cornfield. Down the line you become witness to the most un-shocking unmasking — unless you just weren’t paying attention to the movie’s painfully obvious clues early on — and you have to digest a rather ridiculous motive. The latter is unprecedented, I’ll give it that, but the movie does an inferior job of getting it across without sounding silly. I was no fan of the novel, I must admit, yet Cesare gave the killers’ M.O. some credibility. It doesn’t help that the villains’ actors are, in a word, dreary.

Clown in a Cornfield isn’t your parents’ slasher; it has something more to say and do. The problem here is the execution, which is relatively better in the source material than it is in Craig’s take. The lackluster, TV-like production values don’t do the movie any favors either, and the characters are a chore to cheer on. Overall, it’s a so-so interpretation of a novel I didn’t care for, yet I know many others did. Different strokes. At worst, Clown in a Cornfield is a run-of-the-mill slasher movie with a decent plot twist and a handful of satisfying cheap thrills and kills. And for the least demanding fans of this genre, that’s more than enough to keep them happy.

Clown in a Cornfield premiered at SXSW 2025 and will play in theaters nationwide starting on May 9.