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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cThunderbolts*\u201d certainly scared off the competition in its second weekend at the domestic box office. This sometimes happens the weekend after the opening of a huge blockbuster. Other studios will know that they can\u2019t compete against the powerhouse, so they hold off on releasing anything that they think has the potential to be a big or even midsize hit. When that happens, I have to review either a holdover or a newcomer that can only hope to become, at most, a tiny hit. \u201cClown in a Cornfield\u201d definitely falls into the latter category. This thing is cheap even by horror movie standards, yet in a minor victory, it managed to open in fifth place for the weekend. I\u2019d admire its pluck, but there\u2019s no sleeper hit here, just a movie that didn\u2019t fail too badly when it was sent out to die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film follows Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas), a teenager moving to the rural town of Kettle Springs with her doctor father Glenn (Aaron Abrams). Sullen and supposedly shy, Quinn is expectedly standoffish toward her unsophisticated classmate Rust (Vincent Muller). But she\u2019s able to make surprisingly fast friends with the cool clique: jock Matt (Alexandre Martin Deakin), joker Tucker (Ayo Solanke), friendly Ronnie (Verity Marks), mean Janet (Cassandra Potenza), and leader Cole (Carson MacCormac). Cole is the son of wealthy corn syrup magnate Arthur Hill (Kevin Durand), who chews scenery so viciously in straight scenes that it\u2019s hard not to picture him delivering villainous exposition by the movie\u2019s end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It soon becomes apparent that the adults in the town don\u2019t much care for teenagers, especially Cole\u2019s group. Teachers, shopkeepers, and the local sheriff (Will Sasso) seem to have a vendetta against the kids, punishing them for pranks that they only sometimes pull. Quinn knows that it\u2019s normal for kids to \u201cthink\u201d authority figures are out to get them, and it\u2019s not like the teens completely abstain from mischief, but something seems off about the dynamic. Cole explains that it\u2019s because the group is being unfairly blamed for a recent fire at the corn syrup factory that had a devastating economic effect on the town. Quinn takes him at his word that the fire was an unrelated accident, but should she trust him? Can any teenager ever be trusted?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Never mind filling in blanks about the town\u2019s past, there\u2019s a killer on the loose! Somebody dressed as Frendo the Clown, the mascot of the corn syrup company, is killing off teens that have upset the establishment. As a matter of fact, their master plan seems to be to attack a group gathering for a booze\/drugs\/sex\/music party set in a barn. And the barn is right next to\u2026 that\u2019s right, a high-end golf course. Just kidding, it\u2019s a cornfield. Get ready for some deaths by pitchfork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wasn\u2019t digging \u201cClown in a Cornfield,\u201d and not just because it doesn\u2019t do scares and violence well. It doesn\u2019t, but I think the bigger problem is with the characters. These are some of the least-likeable protagonists I\u2019ve seen in a while. The \u201cbroken family getting set up in a new town\u201d trope has been done to death in every genre, but especially horror (and don\u2019t think I\u2019ve forgotten about you, \u201cadult is barely able to keep custody of a child and scary happenings are the last thing they need\u201d). Quinn and her father just seem like they\u2019re this movie\u2019s plug-in for character types, not characters of their own, and nothing about their chemistry with one another seems natural. And this is to say nothing of the collection of one-dimensional clown fodder that make up the circle of friends or shady townspeople. I live in New York City, and I\u2019m about as likely to see this movie again as I am to see an actual cornfield outside my window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: D<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cClown in a Cornfield\u201d is rated R for bloody horror violence, language throughout, and teen drinking. Ita running time is 96 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cClown in a Cornfield\u201d By Bob Garver \u201cThunderbolts*\u201d certainly scared off the competition in its second weekend at the domestic box office. This sometimes happens the weekend after the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDVcL3VubmFtZWQud2VicD9maXQ9MTgzJTJDMjc1JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiTW92aWUgUmV2aWV3ICYjODIxMTsgQ2xvd24gaW4gYSBDb3JuZmllbGQiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.EiPDr3WSHGpD7alBctWSlQlZPqMz-GOOfNpJAm8ZgjEMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":55715,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/unnamed.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[11490],"class_list":["post-55714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-movie-review-clown-in-a-cornfield"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55716,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55714\/revisions\/55716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}