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MOVIE
Clown in a Cornfield
Director Eli Craig
Review Ray Chan

About 20 minutes into this movie, viewers can be forgiven for twitching in their seats … not out of fright, but perhaps of boredom at the usual tropes and gruesome gore expected of typical slasher spectacles.
    During this introductory period, the plot’s pretty basic. 17-year-old Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) and her single father (Aaron Abrams) have moved into rural Kettle Springs, Missouri, where Quinn befriends a group of teens her age and finds that her fun-loving cohort appear to be generally frowned upon by the older generation in the town, who prefer the quieter life of yore.
    Then a killing spree by someone wearing a clown costume drenches the community in a sea of blood. It turns out that the jester is a facsimile of Frendo, a mascot of the local corn syrup factory which burned down years ago, an incident which many of the elderly folks believe was caused by the young ‘uns.
    Ho-hum, you might think. But then, in the hands of director Eli Craig, all of this is intentional and referential to the history of slashers, down to the point where Quinn quips that the massacres remind her of something out of an 80’s splatter show. 
    Craig is best known for co-writing and directing Tucker and Dale vs Evil. In the years since that film’s release, no other self-parodying scare production has even come close to snatching the crown off of its trucker-hatted head. Its genius is rooted in simultaneously inhabiting and satirising the genre, without sacrificing either the jokes or the terrors lurking round the corner. 
    And so, in a blink of an eye, this movie picks up, revealing not just some clever and inventive scenes, witty dialogue and plenty of red herrings as to the identity of the villain, but also some incredibly solid kills, like the gnarly chainsaw slaughter in the middle of the cornfield, a barbell incident that sees a severed head dispatched into a bin, and a brutal pitchfork sequence that results in two deaths.
    Kevin Durand is the unexpected delight of the cast, and looks so much like Elon Musk that he must be a shoo-in for the lead if a doco-pic of the businessman were ever made.
    In this picture, as Arthur Hill, Durand initially comes off as a stereotypical father who is part of a lucrative family that founded the town. But he evolves into something else entirely that is wholly crucial to the circus-themed massacre.
    Metaphorically, the theme of Clown .. is of a feud between the older and younger contemporaries. The divide is amplified by incidents such Quinn not being able to drive an old-fashioned stickshift car, her disgust at the absence of a strong wi-fi signal, or her school friends being stumped by a rotary phone, unable to call for help. The high school students are sneered at, looked down on for simply having a good time, and judged for things they didn’t ever do or think about doing. The sheriff seems to make his own laws, and teachers dish out detention for no reason.
    Craig and co-writer Carter Blanchard treat the movie with moments of coulrophobic greatness. Frendo is a brutal psychopath whose weird devotion to the harlequin art form (like his big shoes that squeak when he walks during the tensest moments of stalking his prey) makes the audience snigger through the slaughter.
    One particular confrontation in the cornfield is particularly well-choreographed: Quinn and two girl friends are hiding in panic from a chainsaw-wielding Frendo, when one of them inadvertently gasps in fear. Her pal alongside clasps her hand over her mouth to silence her, only for the would-be-saviour herself to also start to yell out in fright. Quinn completes the sequence by covering this girl’s mouth, but then gets her own face grasped by the white glove of Frendo.  
    One can’t help but notice that the film is overflowing with palpable teenage energy. But the constant barrage of “adults just don’t understand us” and the nonstop desire to drink themselves stupid at every opportunity becomes predictable and tiresome.
    Still, the movie is refreshingly different to straight-out fright flicks because of the whimsiness and wit strewn in among the clownish carnage. The playful campy tone only adds to the entertainment, deftly balancing the comedy and horror elements. This is not The Terrifier, and Frendo is no Art.
    There are a couple of plot twists along the way to wrap things up nicely. One involves the unmasking of Frendo, the other a neat development between two of Quinn’s friends that can be picked up earlier in the story if one were astute enough.

#clowninacornfield #studiocanal