Looking for a fresh start, Quinn and her father move to the quiet town of Kettle Springs. They soon learn the fractured community has fallen on hard times after losing a treasured factory to a fire. As the locals bicker amongst themselves and tensions boil over, a sinister, grinning clown emerges from the cornfields to cleanse the town of its burdens, one bloody victim at a time.
Based on the praised 2020 novel by Adam Cesare, Clown in a Cornfield is a hilarious, horrific new slasher flick that introduces a new iconic masked figure to the genre – Frendo the Clown.
Following its acclaim out of this year’s SXSW, Peter Gray spoke with director Eli Craig about balancing both the comedy and the carnage the story requires, the unlikely social commentary of the story, and if his relationship with fear has altered over the course of his career.
When I heard all the reactions for Clown in a Cornfield out of SXSW this year, I was so excited. And now having seen it, it’s so up my alley. It brought me back to the slashers of the 80s and 90s, but it also subverted expectation. You’ve tackled comedy and horror before, and I feel like fear and humour often provoke such a visceral reaction. Do you approach them similarly when directing? Or do they require completely different muscles?
I do believe that they’re similar. There’s a similar element of the human brain that deals with fear and laughter. I see them being oddly similar. A lot of people, especially in the studio system, and I hope this is changing a little bit, but with some great horror comedies that have come out lately, like Heart Eyes and Companion, studios have always wanted really genre specific stuff. I feel blessed, in a way.
It’s been a struggle to make these kind of movies, but I feel blessed that I’ve had the opportunity. When I get the green light to make a movie, the challenge is not to lose the horror, especially on this film, but being goofy or something. It very much lives in the context of the world.
It was one of those movies where the characters are saying humourous things, and we’re laughing along because, as much as the situations are horrific, they’re reacting in a manner that’s self-aware. For you, was there a specific kill or specific moment that you knew was the one that would make audiences scream or cheer?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I’d say this is the first film where I’ve totally given into the act structure, where you’re going to end with the biggest bang, right? With Tucker & Dale, I think I was so excited to just make a movie. I went gangbusters with comedy the whole way through, (but) I wanted it to have a tender heart and these action elements. But if could critique my own work, I would say that Tucker & Dale peaks in the second act. It’s just as good as I could ever o for a film, but in the second act it just kind of keeps cruising for a while. And with Little Evil, I really tried to make it peak in the third act, but I wasn’t balancing.
I love both of those movies, but I wasn’t balancing the comedy with the horror vibes enough. So I learned to be patient and take my time to develop characters, and I’m not going to be nervous if I’m not making people laugh all the time through the character development. Once I really get into it, it’s my jam. I’m going to build, build, build until the very end. That was my goal on this.
Do you see horror and comedy as a way of making sense of life’s contradictions?
I see comedy as a way of making sense of life. I think life is horror, and if humans didn’t have comedy…this is why ChatGPT can’t write a book, because humans have a sense of the absurd inside of us. And when things get too horrific, we have to laugh. That, to me, is why this is the perfect movie for right now, because we live in a really dark, horrific time, and it feels so out of our control. It feels out of my control. I wish I had more control, but I don’t, so it feels like you’re inside a horror movie just trying to survive. But the thing we have to do is remember our humanity and how to laugh, because that gets us through. I think this movie is a metaphor for America, in a lot of ways. But it’s also a metaphor for surviving horror, because the best way to do it is to keep a sense of humour.
I was going to ask about that, because we see in the film there’s the generational divide and the small town values. What do you think it is about horror being the best genre to sneak in social commentary?
It’s because it’s about sneaking it in, right? It’s about layers of the onion, and if somebody cares to dissect it to its deepest part, there’s a lot there. Maybe you’re not in the mental place for it in your life, and that’s fine, but I think the best art has a lot to say that maybe even the artist doesn’t even know it’s saying. I also think of things, like Dostoyevsky, and how these Russian authors had to hide their stories from the censors and be smart enough that the censors wouldn’t know that they were actually criticising the powers that be inside their work.
There’s always something I try to hide within my movie, but its not a message at all. It’s just these themes that I think our culture is dealing with right now. And while I say it’s American, it’s really worldwide. I think it works all over the world. But I am definitely satirizing a part of America. Even the title satirizes it, because cornfields are America. You drive through the Midwest and it’s corn as far as they can see. But it was also a very hopeful crop in the 30s and 40s, (with) farmers coming out of the Great Depression, and they started making corn syrup, this sugary, sweet substance that was also supposed to be good for you. There’s just something so metaphorically wonderful about this forward looking, optimistic America that thought corn syrup was good for you. And now your teeth are rotted and you have diabetes. America is decaying in front of our eyes, and the American dream is on life support. So, you know, we have clowns running everywhere. We have a clown that’s running around causing a lot of problems in the cornfield.
On the censor side of things, I remember hearing Wes Craven talk about making Scream and the shot of Drew Barrymore being stabbed caused issues with the censors on set. He said how it was the only shot they had and they couldn’t manage it again for an edit, or something to that effect. It made me think, was there ever a moment where you thought you’d gone too far? Did you have to tiptoe around anyone? Or did you have free rein?
This was an independent film. I didn’t have a studio leaning over me and giving me notes about that stuff. I would say the producers never asked me to tone down my cut of it. I’m not a gore hound. Like, Art the Clown (Terrifier) lives in his own gore level, to me, and I will watch it as a student and admire. I admire what Damien (Leone) does, prosthetically. I admire his physical and special effects. But it’s not my jam. I have kind of a repulsion to gore. So, when I’m kind of grossed out with what I’m doing in my own film, that’s where I try to find my balance. I want to get myself right to the level of, “Oh, God, I can’t look,” and then give the audience a break. I don’t want to dwell on it.
Has your relationship with fear changed as a storyteller over the years at all?
Yeah, I can watch a lot of more horror movies now that I wouldn’t be able to watch before. I begin to ask how things are done. My brains just goes to seeing what’s going on behind the camera. All the physical effects. I can disassociate, and not experience what the character is experiencing. I was terrified of horror as a kid, and I think it affected me very deeply.
I remember seeing The Exorcist, when I was seven or eight, and I just couldn’t believe when Regan is freaking out and her head is spinning and she’s using foul language. There were some movies that just destroyed me. Those visuals stay with you for life. And that’s the part about horror that I also love, because it imprints a little bit in your brain. I want to do that. But I also like to make hopeful films. Hopeful horror. I like someone surviving and going through awful, terrible things. It makes them a stronger person, which is what I believe about struggle in general.
I will also say, as a gay man, I loved that that was a part of the film that felt natural. We’re seeing horror just completely thrive, so I’m grateful that we have big screen horror in the world.
I’ll give you one other thing, because my youngest brother is very openly gay, and I think that, to be honest with you, the best versions of movies for gay right were the one that weren’t trying to make a point. I feel like things that are just there to make a message don’t break through to gay people. It’s good for people that are not going to see an LGBTQ movie at all to just have gay characters that aren’t a theme of the movie. It’s just an element of it.
Clown in a Cornfield is screening in Australian theatres from May 8th, 2025, before opening in the United States on May 9th.
