By WILLIAM J. WRIGHT
With CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD, based on author Adam Cesare‘s Bram Stoker Award-winning 2020 YA novel, hitting theaters, coulrophobia and horrific harlequins are again in the genre spotlight. From Pennywise to Captain Spaulding to Art to countless others, greasepaint fiends have become a subgenre that, like masked killers, zombies and vampires, is here to stay. In the absence of pop-culture mainstays such as Ronald McDonald and Bozo, coupled with the slow, sad death of circuses, the ubiquity of creepy clowns in recent decades may be pointing us to a generation that only recognizes white facepaint and red rubber noses as objects of fear rather than mirth. And maybe that’s for the best. Clowns have always been unsettling. As horror’s greatest actor, the inimitable Lon Chaney, once said, “There’s nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.”
Yet, as both Cole Porter and Gary Lewis and the Playboys told us in song, everybody loves a clown. No one understands this better than director Eli Craig. Best known for his pointed and hilarious 2010 horror send-up, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Craig is betting that horror fans have room in their black hearts for another scary clown, even in a post-Terrifier cinematic landscape. Enter Frendo, a killer clown with a difference. Ahead of CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD’s theatrical release, RUE MORGUE caught up with the filmmaker to get his unexpectedly deep take on clowns in horror, discuss the challenges of bringing Cesare’s book to the big screen, and learn why he loves smashing audience expectations and genre clichés.
There have been so many creepy clown movies in recent years. Do you have any reservations about going down such a well-worn path, especially one with iconic characters such as Pennywise and Art? Why can’t people get enough of scary clowns?
Actually, it settled my nerves a bit that [scary clowns are their] own genre. It would make me way more nervous if it were just Pennywise and Art I was going up against, and then it would seem like, Oh no! He’s just doing the thing that’s been done. And maybe, you get a little bit of that, especially after Terrifier did so well, but we made [CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD] before I saw Terrifier 3. And so, Terrifier just lived with all the other clown movies at the time, and I wanted to make sure that Frendo was his own antagonist and he had his own specificity. And yeah, he’ll be within this genre of clowns that is sort of loved or hated – some people are truly scared of clowns – but he’s very specific.
Director Eli Craig and Frendo at The Overlook Film Festival for the screening of CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD. Courtesy of RLJE Films and Shudder.
And I think the reason why it keeps coming back is because clowning is almost primal. All human cultures, since the beginning of time, have had some version of clowns, and now we’ve sort of taken it and modernized it, and we’ve done different tropes with them, but essentially it’s a part of the human archetype. I even read a philosopher who said he thinks it’s a part of the human condition that we have to have clowns in our culture to both entertain us and give us the truth, as Jesters did in the Middle Ages. They would be the only ones who could tell the king the truth of what’s happening. And they did so in a comedic way to get a point across. And sometimes, they’d go too far and get their heads chopped off. So in this case, I feel like I’m making a really entertaining film with a clown that also works to bring a message to the king. It brings a story out, but it does so in a sort of heightened, gory, horror, slasher, humorous way.
That is a really interesting perspective. I did not expect that we would make a detour into King Lear!
Shakespeare wrote about clowns, so why not? [Laughs]
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD adheres closely to the style and “rules” of classic ’80s slasher movies and then turns them on end, making the film something deeper and scarier. This upending of expectations is also the whole premise of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. What is it about subverting classic genre tropes that appeals to you?
I just enjoy surprising people. I think that is part of it. It even begins with the film’s title. You set people up for the expectations of one thing, and then you try to play with their expectations, and maybe give them what they expect, but then, give them something different at the same time. I love playing with horror tropes because you’re kind of allowed to give people their warm cozy blanket, and they’re like, Oh, I understand what’s going to happen. And you get very relaxed and think, I know this. Not that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if it just went exactly the way everybody expected. There’s something nice about that comfort food, but then I kind of want to rip the comfort food away, and suddenly, you’re eating spicy candy, and you’re surprised that you’re laughing. Or maybe you’re surprised that this is really about something kind of deep also. So I love having those layers to anything I do.
Director Eli Craig, Novelist Adam Cesare and Frendo at The Overlook Film Festival for the screening of CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD. Courtesy of RLJE Films and Shudder.
Were there any specific challenges you faced in adapting Adam Cesare’s very popular book?
The main challenge in adapting Adam’s book, in particular, but any book, I think, is that this was somebody else’s baby first. And not only is it his baby, but it’s a lot of his fans’ baby, too, and you want to make them feel they’re a part of the process and want them to love the film, too, and not just the book. Many times, I think films don’t live up to the books [they are based on], and so many times people are like, Oh, the film’s no good, but you should read the book. It’s a very different thing to make a film than it is to write a book. There are some things I change because I think it willl elevate the film, but I tried to stay true to the themes of the story and the character arcs and all the elements that are deeply personal and important to both Adam and his fan base while I tackled this film and made it my own, too. So yeah, it’s a challenge, but it’s also a fun challenge. Every movie has guardrails you have to put on it to make sure you’re headed in the right direction, and these guardrails helped me to make a better movie.
Don’t F**k with Frendo! See CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD from Shudder and RLJE Films only in theaters on Friday, May 9.
