Clown in a Cornfield (2025)

Director: Eli Craig

Starring: Katie Douglas, Aaron Abrams, Carson MacCormac

A fading midwestern town in which Frendo the clown, a symbol of bygone success, reemerges as a terrifying scourge.

Aaah, don’t you just love to unwind with a gory bloodspatter slasher horror?

Just like every shark movie being compared to ‘Jaws’ I believe every clown slasher movie will now be compared to Art the Clown from the ‘Terrifier’ franchise. Although I, too, at first believed ‘Clown in a Cornfield’ was taking a swing at ‘Terrifier’, this actually turned out to be completely different, and not wanting to be another ‘Terrifier’ at all.

17-Year old Quinn (Katie Douglas) and her dad, Dr. Glenn Maybrook (Aaron Abrams) relocate to the town of Kettle Springs. Quinn starts hanging out with a group of teens who have their own YouTube channel, staging and posting horror prank videos. Quinn becomes close friends with Cole, mayor Arthur Hill’s son – to her dad’s disapproval.

The film has a distinct ‘I know what you did last summer’ vibe. A Creepy clown starts killing people in classic 80’s-style ways. Spoiler alert: at the mid turning point at a party with most of the town’s teens present, a few dozen clowns suddenly emerge from the corn field and start killing the teens. Well, this was a bit much, I thought, and it kinda ruined the idea of there only being one murderous clown. But then the clowns started acting and talking just like ordinary humans – while I believed this to be a supernatural horror.

And here’s the twist – and this is a big spoiler: it turns out the clowns are the town’s grown-ups: the sheriff, the teacher, the waitress, and even the mayor – you get the idea. Apart from being the mayor, Arthur Hill is a prominent business man and leading figure in the town. He hates his son, so it doesn’t really come as a surprise that he wants to kill Cole.

But its going to take a lot of convincing (for me) to believe all the grown-ups are in on these killings. So, its ok for them to kill their neighbour’s kids, their friends, and even their own?! This is supposedly because they blame the kids for the town’s troubles. Wha-a-a-at, seriously??!! And this justifies them killing the town’s kids? If the parents were possessed or there were another fcked up reason for them resorting to such drastic measures, I might have believed it. But I found this to be a lazy reveal, and not a satisfying one.

Even so, I believe ‘Clown in a Cornfield’ has the potential to become a cult classic, and maybe even spawn at least one sequel. I must commend Katie Douglas on a very good performance. I also thought Aaron Abrams did a great job as Glenn, who – apart from Quinn – became a hero in his own right.

‘Clown in a Cornfield’ was a box office hit, earning $9.4 million on a budget of just $1 million.

Would I watch it again? With the disappointing end reveal, I doubt it.