“Clown in a Cornfield,” a new teen slasher film from the writer-director Eli Craig, is both silly and as sincere as an honor student’s term paper. To its credit, it uses horror to examine the economic woes of the deteriorating Midwest and the emotional shortcomings of the working-class Gen X-ers and baby boomers who never left there.
What it could have used is the kind of whip smart satire that made Craig’s superior film “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” (2011) a horror-comedy paragon.
The film is set in a small Missouri farming community that was once home to, and defined by, a thriving corn syrup operation with a clown mascot known as Frendo. New in town are Quinn (Katie Douglas, terrific) and her doctor father (Aaron Abrams), who quickly discover how damaged the town became after a mysterious fire crippled the company.
Just as Quinn starts to make friends, along come some psychopaths who dress like Frendo and kill select young folk to prevent them from leaving town and achieving their dreams. Or something like that. It’s hard to discern: In adapting Adam Cesare’s novel, Carter Blanchard and Craig have crafted a screenplay that focuses more on grisly (and often gnarly) slaughters than on providing answers to the killer cabal’s motivations. A gay romance provides a sweet if underdeveloped detour.
A lackluster horror movie gets points if the leading villain is a real bugaboo. But the Frendos, alas, look like poser versions of Pennywise, Art the Clown and other, scarier horror bozos.
Clown in a Cornfield
Rated R for clown-caused carnage. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters.
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