'Clown in a Cornfield' Review: Eli Craig’s Gory Teen Slasher Mixes Killer Clowns, Viral Horror, and Small-Town Secrets
There’s something viscerally unnerving about a cornfield. Those dry, serrated stalks stretch endlessly skyward, creating a labyrinth of shadows perfect for hiding something—or someone—sinister. Now add a clown: the most iconic symbol of warped innocence, with painted-on smiles, grotesquely exaggerated features, and an unsettling silence that screams louder than words. In Clown in a Cornfield, director Eli Craig (Tucker & Dale vs. Evil) fuses these two primal fears into a razor-sharp teen slasher steeped in genre tropes, satire, and blood-soaked twists.
Clown in a Cornfield is a blood-soaked teen slasher where viral pranks, killer clowns, and small-town secrets collide in Eli Craig’s latest horror.
Shauna Townley
Shauna Townley
Katie Douglas stars as Quinn, a disaffected teen from the city forced to relocate to a dying rural town still reeling from the mysterious fire that destroyed its only major employer—the corn-syrup factory. At school, Quinn connects with a group of local pranksters whose YouTube horror sketches depict Frendo, the factory’s now-defunct clown mascot, as a slasher villain. But when members of the group start disappearing, fiction starts bleeding into fact—and the town’s worst fears come to life.
What follows is a tightly-wound, genre-literate horror ride. Craig cleverly tips his hat to Scream, Children of the Corn, and Hot Fuzz, all while maintaining a unique voice that leans into Gen Z anxieties, influencer culture, and the blurred line between performance and reality. Frendo, the clown, kills not for sport but seemingly out of necessity, using any tool available in horrifyingly creative ways.
There’s not much time for introspection in Clown in a Cornfield—and that’s by design. Craig trims exposition to the bone, letting the action unfold with brutal efficiency. The scares are frequent, the tone smartly self-aware, and the tension driven by escalating violence and the town’s shadowy past. While the plot leans more on atmosphere and momentum than logic, the breakneck pacing and inventive kills keep audiences invested until the final reveal.
Ultimately, Clown in a Cornfield delivers exactly what horror fans crave: escalating terror, cleverly executed kills, and enough genre twists to keep even seasoned slasher veterans guessing. Whether Frendo is supernatural, symbolic, or just a man in a mask is a mystery worth exploring—just don’t wander into the corn alone.
