There Is, In Fact, A Clown In The Cornfield

Clown in a Cornfield [2025]

Film

If you spliced together every slasher trope in a lab and added a dose of clown-fueled chaos, you'd get Clown in a Cornfield—a film that gleefully checks every box, only to flip the script and light it on fire. Moronic teenagers, curmudgeonly elders, a run-down midwestern town, and a clown named Frendo terrorizing the youth of the town one by one, all find their perfect, cozy little home in this clown-crazed bloodbath. But as cut and dry as the elements are, the final product from the Tucker and Dale vs. Evil director, Eli Craig, is nothing short of fresh, bloody fun. While it doesn't strike the same balance as the aforementioned film from Craig, somehow holding dueling perspectives of tortured teens and affable idiots, Clown in a Cornfield subverts expectations in a similar style, one that Craig has fine-tuned over the years. Providing a silly, gory, entertaining watch that will serve genre fans and deliver some great laughs and scares for all alike.

Like many horror films, Craig's film begins with a newcomer to town. Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) and her father (Aaron Abrams) are elated to be the two newest members of Kettle Springs, yet another Midwestern town stuck in the past. Their traditions take precedent over common sense, the Founder's Day parade that boasts a bunch of clown floats that pay homage to the Corn Syrup factory's mascot-talk about dystopic capitalism-must continue. Even if the factory has been burnt down for years now, an incident attributed to Cole (Carson MacCormac) and his group of friends including Janet (Cassandra Potenza), Ronnie (Verity Marks), Tucker (Ayo Solanke) and Matt (Alexandre Martin Deakin). A conglomerate of troublemaking teens that spend their spare time pranking others by filming videos of one another dressed as Frendo (the Corn Syrup Clown) murdering one another and uploading the video to their YouTube channel. It's equal parts Eli Roth's Thanksgiving and Scream as, suddenly, in a cruel twist of the knife, it looks like Frendo might be real and he's picking off the teenagers one by one in gruesome fashion.

Craig employs just about every trope in the book here, similarly to his work in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, but of course, once again, it’s done to call into question the efficacy of these ideas in any other film. This is in part how the anachronistic identity of the town and the younger generation work so well, providing great humor along with extending the horror of Frendo's terror. Instances like not knowing how to use a rotary phone or how to drive a stick shift are prime examples of ridiculous plot armor that horror films often use to stick their victims in hapless states. Craig knows this and cleverly works to subvert the very tropes that drive the genre, giving Clown in a Cornfield a much more interesting and entertaining angle. Not to mention, the very uncomfortable divide between the younger and older generations, depicted through a by the book Sheriff (Will Sasso) and power tripping teacher (Bradley Sawatzky) builds upon this twisting of commonplace horror film ideas. The cool kids being the bane of existence for the elderly crowd in the town, along with their penchant for creating content, feels incredibly fresh and modern. A poignant double-edged sword of commentary, cutting both ways into this town that's desperately clinging to the past.

Clown in a Cornfield [2025]

Doing all of this at a brisk 96-minute runtime allows the film to gloss over certain elements, thrusting the film forward so quickly that you don't even care to question something. You've already moved on. And in this chaos, Craig's and co-writer Carter Blanchard's adaptation of Adam Cesare's novel of the same name, soars. The blood-soaked carnage, combined with undercutting the seriousness of the scene, delivers a fantastic one-two punch of humor and horror.

But of course, all good things must come to an end. Unfortunately, in a similar turn to Longlegs, the third act's exposition dump explaining everything undermines all of the nonsensical fun that led up to it. Once the shroud of mystery behind Frendo and Clown in a Cornfield dissipates, the dumb fun seems to leak away as well. Rendering the finale as a slight swing and a miss. Maybe it’s best to just let the clown be in the cornfield, no questions asked.

While there are some weak spots in Craig's latest horror film (read: horror-comedy), namely its lack of balance of good vs evil-vagueness to avoid spoilers here-and weak characters, which could be considered part of the satire but could be better, that doesn't prevent Clown in a Cornfield from being a total blast. It's not as humorous as Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and not as big of a meta-commentary on horror like Cabin in the Woods, but it finds itself somewhere in the middle. A range in which it operates with aplomb, making it a surprisingly fun time with enough blood for everyone.

Froth

New to the Seattle brewery scene is Human People Beer—a welcome newcomer with a brand-new taproom, though they've been slinging suds for a while now via a pop-up outside Ballard’s Stoup Brewing. Their most recent pop-up is where I grabbed Big Country, a Pilsner that feels like a spiritual companion to Clown in a Cornfield—yes, the one with the homicidal mascot in overalls.

Big Country is a delightfully light and fluffy pilsner that practically sweats summer energy. I’m talking big keggers at the old farm, bonfires, corn tag—yes, that’s a thing—and the whole dusty, golden-hour Americana fantasy.

Well, I'm just guessing that's what happened, I never got invited to those parties if that wasn't evident enough with my film blogging.

But let’s talk beer. Big Country pours with a gorgeous head and a pale, straw-like clarity that is as refreshing as it sounds. The red wheat malt brings unexpected depth: a bready, nutty core and a creamy mouthfeel, while still preserving the light-bodied drinkability of the brew. It's light, sure, but not hollow. There's a pinch of pepper on the finish from the German Perle hops, rounded out by soft floral aromatics that linger just enough to make you notice.

The moral of this pairing is that we do live in a big country, things are different in every state, things that we can't always explain with rational thinking. But if you ever go through some Midwestern town and see a clown in a cornfield, just keep driving and throw all hunger for rationality out the window. You'll thank me later.