Clown in a Cornfield is a 2025 slasher film based on the novel of the same name written by Adam Cesare. The film was distributed by Shudder and Temple Hill Entertainment, directed by Eli Craig, and starring Katie Douglas, Aaron Abrams, Carson MacCormac, Will Sasso, and Kevin Durand. The film follows our strong final girl archetype, Quinn, who moves to the small and quaint town of Kettle Springs, MO with her doctor father following the death of her mom. Her dad buys the small practice in town and is hoping to start a new, quiet, and peaceful life for Quinn and himself in the small, farming community. Things don’t entirely go as planned though. The quiet, little town has an animosity brewing at its core between the younger and older citizens of the area and there’s an evil plan brewing that they unknowingly throw themselves right into the middle of.
I really enjoyed these books when I read them (I have a review out over the first 2 novels on this page as well if anyone is interested) because these books did a good job at making us actually care about the group of kids that we were spending a majority of our time with, unlike a lot of slashers of the past that use our group of teens as dispensable characters for the most part. Every character in the group of kids that we meet has their own sort of presence and character beat when they’re on the screen and no 2 of them are exactly alike. There are still the classic high school/slasher character troupes don’t get me wrong, but they’re presented in a cleverer and less in your face way. I think the movie did a pretty good job of presenting our cast of kids well, I still enjoyed Quinn, Cole, and Rust like I did in the novel, but there wasn’t as much depth or development as I’d necessarily have liked. I feel like that’s a decently common thing though if something (film or TV) is adapted from a novel and you read the novel first. Usually, film does a great job at bringing some of the more action packed and climactic parts of a story to life on the big screen, but novels generally win out when it comes to overall character development and motivation and this was no different. I also enjoyed the way the slasher formula was overall handled in this story, as I kind of touched on before. The cliched slasher moments and troupes that fans of these movies have come to expect were still there to enjoy, but this movie didn’t feel the need to play by all of those rules to tell their story. Our main girl Quinn was still interested in boys and looking for romance unlike most final girls, Cole was a preppy jock and they’re usually the douchebags in these stories but he was actually a good guy, and more moments like that that proved they weren’t necessarily worried about the basic rules of a slasher story.
This movie also was interesting because it played on the animosity between the youth and the middle aged and the butting of heads that can come from 2 groups of people in the same town having very different opinions and ideals and blaming one another for all the issues in the community. Something that is still very prevalent to this very day and has been time and time again throughout history. Our youth are presented as the protagonists in a lot of ways throughout the story, but there are even times where you can see and understand how they would get under the skin of the others in the town. I enjoyed that balance with our main characters in the story, they were the good guys but not always in the most conventional ways. They still had their faults and didn’t always play by the rules of the “good guy” formula, but that didn’t make them any less sympathetic or make you root for them any less once push came to shove. The twist in this story was pretty well done on screen, and that’s all I’ll say about that. I knew it was coming from having read the books, but seeing it play out on screen was still pretty neat and I could tell from the reaction around me in the theater that it, for the most part, worked and was executed well. I thought the exposition dump about the town of Kettle Springs by our antagonist near the end of the film was a really intriguing motivation as well and made for one of the better moments in the film. It opened up the door for sequels and even prequels after this movie and made the town itself more ominous and interesting as a setting for a horror story.
I was surprised to see Kevin Durand (Proximus Caesar anyone?) AND Will Sasso pop up in a movie like this, I mean a Shudder slasher movie? I wasn’t upset by it though, I listen to Will on podcasts sometimes and he seems like a genuine teddy bear, plus he’s a wrestling fan and he’s goofy so what’s not to love? Seeing him step into the role of a country sheriff was rather hilarious but I still had fun with it, and Kevin Durand just fits the role of a leader I guess because that seems to be the characters he’s playing as of late. The kids, specifically Katie Douglas and Carson MacCormack (who played Quinn and Cole) did a great job as well! I didn’t recognize any of the teenager characters in this movie from other things before this, but they all fit the bill at least decently well and no one stood out among the pack as just being an awful actor or anything. It seems like clown horror has had a bit of a resurgence within the genre here in the last 5-10 years (the It remakes and the Terrifier franchise) and this is another one to slide right into that category. It’s nothing like Terrifier or It though besides the fact there’s killer clowns and a group of kids, so don’t expect that for better or for worse depending on what you thought about those films. If you read these novels then I’m sure you plan on seeing this anyways if you haven’t already but I’d definitely say you should give it a shot, and if you didn’t read them but you’re a fan of slasher movies or horror movies then you should still check it out. It’s worth the shot if nothing else, it’s only a little over 90 minutes and it’s an easy viewing experience, nothing too on the extreme side and likeable enough characters. It’s in theaters now if you want to check it out or if not, I’m sure it’ll be on Shudder or available to rent in just a couple of months.
