Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (September 15, 2025)
Given they exist to promote fun and frivolity, clowns sure do inspire an awful lot of dread in many people. For another look at these harlequins in a horror setting, we head to 2025’s Clown in a Cornfield.
When Glenn Maybrook (Aaron Abrams) becomes the general practitioner in a tiny Midwestern burg called Kettle Springs, his 17-year-old daughter Quinn (Katie Douglas) needs to adjust to a new high school. She finds a town in an economic depression because the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down and took away most employment opportunities.
This leads to a generational battle between adults stuck in the past and kids who want to move ahead. In the midst of this, Baypen mascot Frendo the Clown pops up to cause mayhem.
Given its title, I went into Cornfield with the assumption it’d offer a comedic take on horror. However, this didn’t seem inevitable and I found it possible the film might opt for a more “straight” tale.
Any question appeared to vanish during the opening scene. A flashback to 1991, it offers a clear homage to the first segment of 1975’s classic Jaws.
Except instead of John Williams’ ominous two-note score, the sound of squeaky clown shoes signals the arrival of the costumed murderer. Given the overt spoof of Jaws and the silliness Frendo’s intro brings, I figured Cornfield would go for broad laughs the rest of the way.
Instead, it exists as a hybrid, one that actually leans a little more toward the serious side of the street. Whether or not this choice works will be up to the individual viewer.
As for me, I think it feels like the filmmakers didn’t really prefer to commit either way. They desired enough satire to qualify as a comedy but they didn’t want to go whole hog into genre parody.
This leaves Cornfield somewhere in the middle. It essentially becomes the the lukewarm water credited to Derek Smalls.
None of this means Cornfield flops as a horror/comedy. It does ensure that the end product feels more tentative and unwilling to “pick a tone” than I would prefer.
On the positive side, Cornfield offers a professional affair and delivers a well-made folm. Also, at 97 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, so the tale offers a brief enough running time that it keeps us with it.
Cornfield also comes with a few surprises along the way. These enliven the proceedings and make the end result a bit more dynamic.
However, I still can’t help but thatthink too much of Cornfield feels like a mediocre slasher flick with a few minor twists. Despite a few daring choices, it never departs enough from the standard formula to stand out as particularly creative.
Of course, not every movie needs to become original to succeed. If Cornfield delivered a really well-executed horror tale, I would feel more enthusiastic about it.
Beyond those sporadic curveballs, though, it tends to seem pretty pedestrian. I can’t find much here that allows the film to form its own identity.
Again, Cornfield remains a perfectly watchable horror flick, and it certainly works better than many of its genre mates. It just doesn’t ever become better than “sort of good”, though.
