I know what you are thinking. Do we really need another clown horror movie? I know, right? It has gotten to the point that those movies might need their own sub-genre. Should we call them Circus Creepers, Laugh-ploitation or how about Killer Clown Chronicles? Whatever you term them as, nothing can possibly top what Pennywise and Art have been able to pull out of their hats but Clown in a Cornfield deserves an honourable mention at least.
With an unremarkable title like that you cannot help but to have really low expectations going in. I know I did. However, Clown suffers from the same issue that plagued Companion earlier this year. The trailer doesn’t do the film justice, nor does it accurately reflect how sharp the film is because if it did, it would give the big ole’ twist away.
Clown is based on a series of Young Adult novels by Adam Cesare. To date there is Clown in a Cornfield, Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives and Clown in a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo. So, there is lots of material to mine for a sequel or a franchise. And don’t let the Young Adult classification dampen your interest as Cesare wrote the books as slasher genre homages and young adults are the primary audience for the Friday the 13ths of the world. While the movie does take some liberties with the story and emphasizes, downplays certain characters, it remains mostly true to Cesare’s Bozo bloodbath.
Get it? Got it? Good.
What teens and adults will appreciate is that Clown’s young people are both intelligent and mature. Sure, they still make mistakes, are still finding their way in the world but they aren’t portrayed as goof-offs especially when it comes to our lead, Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas). Quinn and her dad (Aaron Abrams as Doctor Glenn Maybrook). They’ve moved to the sleepy-almost-comatose town of Kettle Springs, Missouri, partially to put their tragic past behind them.
Quinn befriends the local ne’er-do-wells or at least that’s how they are perceived by the town. You see, the Baypen factory, the linchpin of the local economy, burned to the ground. The teens were blamed despite the official investigation determining the fire was sparked by faulty wiring. The factory was the home of the town’s mascot, a creepy clown named Frendo, who is the subject of the teen’s popular horror series they post on YouTube.
As suddenly as Pennywise pulled poor Georgie Denbroug into that sewer never to be seen again, Kettle Springs teenagers start becoming an endangered species one grisly murder at a time and the kills themselves are pretty cool. Quinn and her new friends, some of which she is wary of having only known them for a short time, become this film’s Scooby Gang attempting to unmask Frendo while evading detention or being locked up by the town’s overzealous sheriff played by the Super Trooper himself, Will Sasso as George Dunne.
I have to say the third-act twist, the typical slasher film carnage confession, is pretty slick. It lifts Clown above other ‘stalk-and-slash’ movies as well as other killer clown cinema like The Jester, Big Top Evil. Those jokes were on us as those films were terrible.
Clown is a lot brighter and smarter which is why horror fans shouldn’t be fooled into thinking this is just another release trying to capitalize on the popularity of Terrifier and Art the Clown. While I am sure that is partially why it was greenlit in the first place as Hollywood loves to play Invasion of the Body Snatchers cranking out cinematic clones when someone or something is red hot but Clown sort of like the Bad Batch’s Sergeant Hunter who thinks and acts on his own even though he owes his very existence to Jango Fett’s DNA. You can be rest assured though that unlike Jango, the Force is definitely with Frendo.
Binge News 