Say no more. The title explains it all, and writer/director Eli Craig makes sure a horror premise with that title delivers. We won’t be waxing poetically about Baypen the clown decades from now, but Shudder will make sure it’ll be ready for teens to watch a scary movie on a weekend high school night. Sometimes things don’t have to change.
Baypen the clown is the mascot for an old recently abandoned sugar factory in Kettle Springs, Missouri. Dr. Maybrook (Aaron Abrams) and his daughter Quinn (Katie Douglas) just moved here for a fresh start, hearing the lore of the town from the Sheriff Dunne (Will Sasso), local hunky teen malcontent Cole (Carson MacCormac) and his father Arthur (Kevin Durand) the factory owner. At the big founders day rager at the barn out of town, Quinn, Cole, and their friends learn that Baypen isn’t just a YouTube video legend the teens are mining for clicks; turns out other, crossbow related clicks might also be involved.
Craig’s intentions are simply to entertain horror fans, and that’s enough for him. As such, we breeze through Kettle Springs and quickly lay waste to its residents, starting right around minute 30, and never let up. The director ups the ante through audacity, and as a result, a dark sense of humor. That ramp up is gradual enough to not make you check out too early, and become invested just enough so when the payoffs happen the deaths add a little insult to injury at the same time. If there isn’t a joke to be made, then the deaths themselves become more and more humorous, really going the extra mile to deliver entertainment for the sickos.
The other enjoyable runner for Clown in a Cornfield is its weaving of past and present slashers together. The movie makes it clear we’re in the present day, frequently mentioning YouTube, social media, etc, but set against Kettle Springs, a town that feels like it’s been the same for hundreds of years seeing what that concoction presents. Craig puts at least a little thought into horror movies past and some of the escapes various teens have done from Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddie Krueger, Leatherface, etc. Technological changes have made some of those past escapes now much more difficult, as the trailer might have teased a couple times with, say, landline complications. There’s also wonderfully different uses of sexual tension and mean girls, and a nice subversion of who the bad people are with the modern story, something that would have not been as true in 1970.
I know this is based on a novel. But let’s use this title idea a few more times Shudder. I think you can mine it for all it’s worth. Like Clown in a Cornfield? Then you’ll love Taxidermist in the Water. Or Nun in the Bar. Or Children of the Corn? See? What goes around comes back around.