Clown in a Cornfield Review

“You are dead. Never f*ck with Frendo” – Daryl

And so, my personal quest comes to an end. Third time was indeed the charm. Clown in a Cornfield and I finally managed to be in the same place at the same time. If you’ve read the previous couple of reviews I’ve posted here, you’ll know that this movie has become an obsession over the past couple of weeks. This is despite knowing nothing about it, other than the title and a brief trailer. The title alone had me right there. Clowns and cornfields. Sounds like fun, right? Add some teens being slaughtered by the cornfield dwelling clown as seen in the trailer and that’s a good evening’s entertainment right there.

I can’t say I’m particularly fond of clowns when I encounter them. No clown has ever traumatised me, or, like abused me as a child, but given a choice – I’ll avoid them. There’s something sinister about them, and not sinister in a good way. I feel exactly the same way about mimes. But, however – put clowns into a horror movie and you have pure gold. It, either the Tim Curry version or the movies with Bill Skarsgard in the role – it doesn’t matter - Pennywise is a legendary figure. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988), the underrated and largely unknown Clownhouse (1989), more recently, Art the Clown in the hugely successful Terrifier trilogy. All of them are immensely successful as horror protagonists because, I think, we’re all a little unwary of those painted faces with their fake smiles and tiny hats. In 1982, Poltergeist’s most famous and effective scare came at the hands of a clown doll. And let us never forget there are good reasons why The Joker has been Batman’s arch villain for eighty-five years now.

So, after two treks to the multiplex over the past fortnight to attend mystery screenings of upcoming horror movies in the dashed hope that one of them would be Clown in a Cornfield, we finally booked our tickets. The big question now, of course would be “was it all worth it?”

Full disclosure - let me backtrack a couple of days to when I became aware that the film is based on a novel. An investigation on Amazon (the website, not the jungle – I’m not Indiana Jones) yielded the surprising result that not only is there a novel, but there’s actually a trilogy of them by author Adam Cesare. Instant purchase – right? So, I was around 130 pages deep into the novel when I attended the screening and had a good idea what to expect.

At its heart, Clown in a Cornfield is a slasher movie. A summer slasher movie, seemingly in the classic tradition meaning that we have some spectacularly dumb teenagers coming to a dumb, splattery end of their dumb lives at the hands of someone they’ve either knowingly or accidentally gotten disgruntled. It’s a slasher movie, so promiscuity can’t be counted out either. We all know how these go by now. (But for some reason, I still find them irresistible.)

BUT – much as the setup is pretty traditional, and the trailer literally gives nothing away of any plot nuances – there’s more to this film than meets the eye. I mentioned nuances, something you don’t get in the Friday the 13th movies – and I speak as a diehard fan, there are nuances here. There’s a surprising amount of character development that leads us to actually care about the possibly would-be victims. Normally, they’re just machete fodder, while we in the audience are rooting for Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers or Art the clown.

Now joining the slasher movie pantheon of killers, there’s Frendo, the town mascot. Frendo was the corporate logo character of the corn syrup that was produced in the factory on the outskirts of the town of Kettle Springs back in the good old days. Farming corn and producing corn syrup was what brought the town prosperity. But that ship has sailed. The factory long closed, and more recently, burnt. Kettle Springs’ glory days are far behind, receding into history.

Then we have the kids. Recently moved to Kettle Springs is Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) with her father Glenn (Aaron Abrams) who’s the new town doctor. The teens at the local high school are a troubled bunch, with an unhealthy addiction to filming their pranks and posting them to their successful YouTube channel. It’s reckoned that the kids are responsible for burning the factory and destroying hope that the good old days might yet return.

The town elders seem to be at war with the younger generation, whom they see as having no respect for their values or traditions. Everything escalates when a prank set up for the Founders Day Parade goes terribly wrong, causing far more damage than the teens had anticipated. For the older generation, it’s another attack on everything they hold dear. But – help is at hand, Frendo, their much-loved icon seems to be targeting the unruly youths.

The generational differences in this film provide a lot of opportunity to explore some social commentary, as the older people seem to espouse some Trumpian values, particularly the less tolerant ones and the accompanying urge to quash any opposition to the old-world order. In this generational war of Baby Boomers vs Generation X, all the youth want is to be heard. Maybe that’s a message that all of us Boomers (I’m one myself) need to remember. We were once the younger, unheard generation and the fact we’re now older (I won’t say wiser) doesn’t give us the right to treat the upcoming generation in the way that frustrated us a half century ago.

Okay, let’s get me off my soapbox and back to business. Was this film worth the effort I put in to seeing it over the past few weeks? Yes, it certainly was. I had the mindless thrill of a killer clown chasing some feckless teens through a cornfield, I saw some pretty messy kills involving, among others, crossbows, chainsaws, and bench presses – and I even came away with something to think about, which is kind of a first for slasher movies. And there’s some humour.

Although I haven’t read them yet, I’m hoping that the sequel novels, Frendo Lives and Church of Frendo have been optioned for filming. I’m curious to see where the story goes from here.

Rob Rating = 9