Clown in a Cornfield – Review

One must be pretty aware of what they are about to be served with from the title alone, which is based on a series of books. The horror semi-comedy Clown in a Cornfield dishes out just that fresh concept illuded to in the title, with dried up and dusty dark cornfields camouflaging a masked killer.

Opening in small town Kettle Springs in 1991, a barn party is in full swing. Music bumps and kids get wasted. One girl Jessica plays with a creepy jack-in-the-box. It’s weird but she likes it I guess. She runs off into the cornfield after waving at some drunk dipshit. He’s like “I thought we were gonna get high,” but then she takes off her shirt and his plan changes. Off runs Jessica again further into the corn.

Too bad these drunk idiots are charging headfirst into the wrong field on the wrong dark night. No scarecrow can save them when the clown’s pitchfork comes calling. What the hell. Like, wait… why? what? why? what?

Cut to NOW: Family doctor Glenn Maybrook (Abrams) drives into that same town with his 17-year-old daughter Quinn (Douglas), while torturing her by flowing along awkwardly to 80s rap. They show up to their new home, but it’s a bit haggard and has an animal corpse in the chimney. Gross.
New job, new school, new small town and a new cornfield hits the pair. Quinn unpacks and readies herself to integrate into high school. Let the horror begin.

As the single dad and daughter adjust to small town life, a deadly cornfield clown starts slashing and killing again, similar to years ago. Here comes mystery and a body count.

Clown in a Cornfield may sound absurd, and it is, but it leans into the title and delivers a good enough horror-first, comedy a far second film. While a lot of the school kids and scenes are fairly generic, the story does not call for too much when it comes to character depth. The short runtime starts to lose a touch of steam before a few nice wrinkles are added which help drive it through to the end.

While it may seem super generic at first, by the end it does offer a few nice thrills and a few funny moments. A slightly sharper script in both horror and humor would have upped the ante and perhaps given a chance for some deeper characterizations, but regardless this movie still has some fun. I liked enough about the script to have a good time despite the thinner bits.