Clown in a Cornfield (2025)

No! Clown in a Cornfield (2025) is not be among the best films of 2025!
Nor among Katie Douglas’s best films, unfortunately. On the other hand, her performance is always flawless. This actress lights up the screen every time, without fail!

Another horror film with clowns. Another slasher film we could have done without! That said, the humour is biting at times.

A doctor who kills a criminal saying, ‘Fuck Hippocrates!’
Generation Z girls who don’t know how to use an old dial telephone or drive manual cars. It’s pretty ridiculous, and I had a good laugh at times!

It’s a surprising role for Katie. I can’t say it’s against type, because I know she’s capable of anything. It’s just unsettling to see that she’s grown up and can now play leading roles in horror films or roles where she falls in love and has a romance.

Her performance in this film adaptation of the horror novel Clown in a Cornfield, published in 2020, has received positive reviews. A journalist from Slashershack even wrote that she had ‘Scream Queen potential’.

Eli Craig had already directed Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010), which made me laugh at times.

After the death of her mother, Quinn Maybrook (Douglas) and her father Glenn (Aaron Abrams) move to Kettle Springs, Missouri, hoping for a fresh start. Quinn quickly makes friends and begins to adjust to her new surroundings, but when she becomes the target of a murderous version of Frendo the Clown, the mascot of the town’s former corn syrup factory, she must fight to survive. As Quinn and her friends fight for their lives, will they be able to discover who is trying to kill them and why? The cast also includes Carson MacCormac, Kevin Durand and Vincent Muller.

Otherwise, there’s nothing particularly new under the sun for anyone who grew up in the 80s with Freddy, Friday the 13th, Halloween, or the 90s with Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Urban Legend spin-offs. If this is your first slasher film, however, you’ll probably enjoy it. Unless you realise you hate horror films!

The more sensitive among you won’t find the violent scenes funny. Others will see the deliberately comical, offbeat and unrealistic side to them.

Once again, there is a group of teenagers with all the usual endearing, annoying or detestable characters. I don’t know if these great actors will all make it big, but they are all reminiscent of actors from the past.

The music is quite varied, featuring 80s rap, rock and electro.

There you go! I won’t dwell on it, because there’s nothing extraordinary to say. There are still inconsistencies. There are still obnoxious adults, which obviously reminds us of Pennywise the clown in ‘It’, who preyed on children whose parents were despicable. It seems that Killer Clowns and Horrible Adults is an inspiring equation!

And as usual, there are also the dead who reappear… but not really, since we didn’t clearly see them breathe their last breath.

There is everything that is specific to Generation Z and their conflicts with their parents. Intergenerational conflict over ecology, open-mindedness and progressivism is rampant and will annoy more than a few people. But it’s always the same grumpy old people who complain using exactly the same phrases, word for word, and make people believe that they were smarter in their day without realising that they are only digging themselves deeper by stubbornly refusing to let go.

Clown in a Cornfield is not a masterpiece, but it aims to entertain and does so without taking itself too seriously. Yes! Knowing that it is very difficult to be original in this field, the director at least has the merit of doing what he likes and doing it without taking himself too seriously either.