2025 Clown in a Cornfield

• Directed by:  Eli Craig
• Written by: Carter Blanchard, Eli Craig, Adam Cesare
• Stars: Katie Douglas, Aaron Abrams, Carson MacCormac
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytUz_H-5p2I
• Buy it: https://amzn.to/3ZT7nhJ

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was a very well made entry into the slasher genre, done more seriously than we expected. There are some laughs, but it’s mostly done straight with a bit of satire. The acting, effects, story, direction, all the elements were very well put together. It moves well and doesn’t drag. Brian liked it quite a bit, but Kevin was left feeling kind of meh.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s 1991 at a barn party. A girl plays with a jack-in-the-box with a clown and then goes off into the cornfield to get naked with her boyfriend. They are soon chased and killed by… a clown in the cornfield! Credits roll. 

In the present day, Quinn and her father, Dr. Glenn Maybrook, move to a very large house in a very small town. He’s the new town doctor. He bought the house unseen, and it has some issues. They see a big old farm factory across the cornfield. There’s no cell service or even wifi in this old house. 

Quinn meets Rust, the neighbor, who walks Quinn to school. He gives her some tips about the area and the school. The entire class picks on Mr. Vern, the teacher, and he’s a jerk about it. She gets detention right away, and she meets all the cool kids there. They talk about how Kettle Springs is stuck in the 90s, and Founder’s Day is this weekend. Baypen Corn Syrup is the main industry in town, and the clown is their logo. The kids have made videos about that clown being a serial killer, just for fun. 

After school, Sheriff Dunne says hello to the new doctor. He recommends that Quinn stay away from a group of kids, who just happen to be her new friends. The group easily manages to steal alcohol from the convenience store but they pay for it as well. Cole and his friends were blamed for setting the Baypen factory on fire, but they say they didn’t do it. 

Suddenly, the group is attacked by a clown! No, it’s a prank video as the teens make another “serial killer clown” video. Quinn tells Cole that her mother overdosed last summer, and her father needed a change, so here they are. 

Later that night, Tucker, the guy who wore the clown costume in the video, is home alone and sees a clown on the Ring camera. He finds the same jack-in-the-box we saw earlier. Then the clown comes out of nowhere and kills him. 

Cole gets in trouble with his parents; his father is the town mayor, and he’s running the Founder’s Day celebration. Janet and Ronnie tell Cole and Quinn that they want to do another video since the last one got so many views. 

The parade goes… badly, and the teens get blamed and arrested for it. The old harbinger in their jail cell says, “You are dead. Never fuck with Frendo.” What? Who? 

Matt, another of the teens, finds the jack-in-the-box on his weight bench. When he gets back to lifting, the clown beheads him. 

Quinn’s father overreacts and grounds Quinn, so she sneaks out for the big party tonight. Cole shows her a jack-in-the-box with branding from the Baypen company and then they nearly run over Rust, who’s been hunting. Cole and Rust used to be friends until the factory burned down. 

The party is at the same barn as from 1991. Tucker and Matt haven’t shown up, so the remaining teens think they’re planning a new prank. It’s quite an elaborate party, and it leads to Quinn and Cole making out in the barn until he rejects her. 

Ginger comes out of the woods and “dies” in front of everyone, who assume it’s another prank video until someone throws Matt’s severed head at them. They all assume that’s fake as well until Frendo the clown comes in and kills more teens with his crossbow. Rust ends up shooting the clown; he says everyone’s tires have been slashed. Suddenly, more clowns appear. It’s a whole posse of insane clowns. Of course, there’s no 911 signal. 

With all the teens locked in the barn, Rust and Cole reveal that they used to be involved, which explains why Cole rejected Quinn. 

In town, the clowns demand that Quinn’s father, the doctor, patch up an injured clown.

Rust leads the others out through a sewer pipe from the barn, and he also manages to blow up some of the clowns. The sheriff runs into the four teens on the road and arrests Cole again before driving off. “Why did they only arrest Cole?” asks Quinn. 

Quinn, Janet, and Ronnie run through the cornfield, again pursued by clowns with chainsaws, hammers, axes, and so forth. Ronnie soon learns the ways of the chainsaw clown. 

The two final girls then come to a farmhouse and find a dead clown inside. They get to a phone but can’t figure it out; it’s a dial phone. They find a crazy wall with clown photos and a jack-in-the-box. “This was a trap,” Quinn points out. The “dead” clown from before kills Janet with a pitchfork. 

Back at the office, Dr. Glenn stabs the clown with the knife. He hears over the radio that Quinn is the only teen left. 

Quinn gets in a truck to drive away, but can’t figure out a stick shift; the clowns catch her. The clowns surround her and take off their masks; the leader is the sheriff, and we see all the other adults that we’ve seen previously. The mayor explains it all to her. First, it was hobos, then hippies, and burnouts; they’ve always kept the town clean of troublemakers. Now it’s the worthless teens they need to purge. 

The mayor has Cole, his own son, hanging from a noose; he blames Cole for everything. The doctor drives through the wall, disrupting the plans, killing a couple of the clowns in the process

Cole, Glenn, and Quinn run and hide in the old factory as the clowns close in on them. Quinn kills the sheriff with a cattle prod. Cole and the mayor discuss who really burned down the factory. Rust shows up to save Cole, and they have a happy reunion with smooches. Quinn says it’s been a very confusing night. The mayor drives away.

The four survivors drive off in the stick-shift clown car. On the way out, Quinn runs over Mr. Vern, the evil teacher. 

Some time passes, and we see that Glenn is now running for mayor. Quinn is leaving town, and Rust and Cole stop by to see her off. She can drive a stick now (dunno about the rotary phone). She finds a jack-in-the-box on the seat and throws it out the window as she leaves town. 

Brian’s Commentary

I find it hard to believe that a bunch of high school teenagers could put together a party like the one in the barn, as they show here. That was a barn, not a party venue. So many lights, elaborate decorations, alcohol, and they didn’t even have permission to use the barn– they snuck all that in there earlier in the day? Where did all those teens from the barn go after the clowns attacked? That’s probably not the least believable thing this movie offers, but it was worth noting. 

It’s got a couple of laughs, but it’s nowhere near as funny as you’d expect with all the clowns. 

It all looks good, it’s paced well, the characters, although all stereotypes, are distinctive and necessary, and overall, has good production values. It’s a standard kill-the-teens movie, but if you like those, this is pretty well done overall. 

I liked it. 

Kevin’s Commentary

This was solid in every way, and I can’t voice any real complaints. But somehow the whole package didn’t really grab me. Perhaps that it didn’t seem unique enough from other things in the slasher genre. At a couple points, the killer clown was doing some acts of phenomenal strength, so I was a little surprised to see that it (they) were just ordinary people. I neither loved it nor hated it. It was okay.