Review: 'Clown in a Cornfield' is a horror comedy that delivers the blood with a justified sense of irony
The title really says it all: “Clown in a Cornfield.” Read it cold, without any preparation, and you’d guess that it’s a horror movie — but what you wouldn’t guess is that it’s a pretty good one, working within and sometimes toying with the parameters of the teen slasher movie.
High school senior Quinn (Katie Douglas) is not pleased that she and her dad (Aaron Abrams) have relocated to the small town of Kettle Springs, Missouri, which is economically depressed ever since a fire destroyed the town’s main industry, a corn syrup factory. But Quinn soon befriends some of her classmates, who spend their spare time making YouTube videos in which they have reimagined the factory’s happy mascot, Frendo the Clown, into a psychotic killer.
Quinn gets a fright the first time the other teens surprise her with a Frendo jump-scare. But when a couple of the teens are murdered bloodily, Quinn realizes someone else is using Frendo for their own nasty purposes. Unfortunately, Quinn’s new friends — led by the swoon-inducing Cole (Carson MacCormac) — have a reputation for mischief, and neither Sheriff Dunn (Will Sasso) or the town’s leading businessman, Mr. Hill (Kevin Durant), believe them. (I should mention that Mr. Hill is Cole’s father.)
Then director Eli Craig — whose first movie was the clever horror-comedy “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” — and co-writer Carter Blanchard up the stakes, and the chances for mayhem, with a twist I will not spoil.
Craig finds a nice balance between scary and silly in this gore-fest. The horror set pieces are smartly staged, and the teen heroes are engaging. That’s especially true of Douglas, who has a pleasant Jenna Ortega vibe and could easily graduate to bigger things after this.
Needless to say, if horror’s not your bag, there’s nothing in “Clown in a Cornfield” that’s going to change your position. But for lovers of meat-and-potatoes slasher movies, it delivers with a dose of ironic detachment.
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‘Clown in a Cornfield’
★★★
Opens Friday, May 9, in theaters. Rated R for bloody horror violence, language throughout and teen drinking. Running time: 97 minutes.