One would be forgiven for assuming there was a lot more to early summer slasher Clown in a Cornfield other than, well, a clown in a cornfield. Because ever since an inevitable premiere at SXSW in March, an impressively maintained buzz has followed – special drive-in screenings, an ambitiously wide release, the bullish positioning of a New Horror Icon – giving us enough naive hope that in an overcrowded genre (there’s estimated to be double the amount of wide release horrors this year compared to 2024), this one might be worthy of the hype.
But the film, which was picked up by ever-growing horror streamer Shudder at the end of last year, would have been a wiser choice for a small screen premiere, a late-night weekend couch watch that feels a little too modest for the multiplex. The expansive rollout will likely have been triggered by the surprise success of last year’s Art the Clown sequel Terrifier 3, which made a staggering $90m worldwide from a $2m budget (it was released the month before Clown in a Cornfield was purchased). As small and junky as those films might be, they’re distinguished by a throughline of ghoulishly inventive ultra-gore, a throwback to the kind of video nasty violence that would worry and repulse parents, the act of seeing the films then carrying with it an air of juvenile rebellion.
