Clown In A Cornfield (2025) Dir: Eli Craig

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When trailers dropped for this Eli Craig directed clown horror, based on the 2020 horror novel by Adam Cesare, it seemed to have all the makings of a fun, silly, and for those of us who are freaked put by evil clowns; scary, horror film. I had kept an eye on it since then, and whilst the reviews have been, generally speaking, fairly middling, I still thought it would be worth my time to check it out. As regular readers will know, I have become a pretty big horror fan in the last few years, and I like to explore what I can from the genre.

Visually speaking, the film was very generic. Even 'Frendo' looked fairly standard. There are some extremely memorable and well-designed evil clown characters in cinema, but this was not one of them, unfortunately. The clown design wasn't bad, per-se, but it certainly didn't leave much of an impression on me. It looked like just about every other horror clown I've seen. I did like some of the set dressing, in the odd scene or two, but not enough for it to factor much into my overall opinion of the film.

The story attempted to subvert audience expectation with a fairly sizable twist, but, for anyone paying proper attention, it was fairly obvious. Furthermore, there was nowhere near as much of the crazy clown content I was expecting and hoping for, and even when they did happen, I found those clown moments extremely underwhelming. I think this had a lot to do with the twist of the story - I didn't mind that in and of itself, but I feel like the film missed a trick by not going as far as they could have.

I also think the film left itself open to criticism from audiences, because the way the trailers presented the film, in comparison to the actual story was very different. I am not totally against that - it was an attempt to swerve the audience, but I can imagine some were, or would be, fairly disgruntled by it.

Katie Douglas starred as the film's young protagonist, and I actually found her quite entertaining, for the most part. I'd even go so far as to call her one of the film's main strengths. Her believable and naturally funny acting made her an ideal protagonist for the film to follow, and she out-performed everyone else in the film, in my opinion.

I wasn't overly impressed by the rest of the cast, which is not to say that anyone was outright poor, but they weren't particularly memorable. Carson MacCormac and Aaron Abrams were the most notable of the supporting cast, whilst the likes of Vincent Muller, Kevin Durand, and Cassandra Potenza, also deserved at least a mention for their roles.

Overall, I thought this was a somewhat underwhelming film, considering what it appeared to promise. I don't feel misled, but I do feel like I'd have preferred the film that trailers wanted their viewers to believe it was. With that said, it did have some positives, including a solid leading performance from its main actor, and a few genuinely quite amusing moments. I won't be in a rush to revisit the film, though.