May 20th, 2025

Nobody in Missouri says “eh”.

They just don’t! But you’d never guess that listening the entire cast of Eli Craig’s Clown in a Cornfield. The most interesting thing about the movie is it’s title which is half of why I went. The other half of my interest is based around Eli Craig’s first film Tucker and Dale Vs Evil, which I absolutely adore. But the charm of Alan Tudyk trying to have a quiet fishing weekend is nowhere to be found is Craig’s most recent movie.

To say that Clown in a Cornfield is rote is putting it lightly. It’s such a basic premise that I thought it would zag on it at some point, but the plot is largely the plot of Simon Pegg’s Hot Fuzz but without any of the jokes. The town is nice and quaint, and thye kill people that aren’t. That’s the whole shtick. If it came out that AI had written the script I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s not that the movie’s story is bad or mismanaged, it’s that it’s been done before in a plethora of different ways. Even the kills are drab and dull.

Moving back to what I started the piece with, every single actor in this is painfully Canadien. Now I have no issue with our neighbors to the north, but if you have a cast that has this thick of a Canadien accent, why not just set the movie in Alberta, or Saskatchewan? I’m sure they have corn up there, and that way it makes more sense when your protagonist says “Sorry aboot dat”. Just basic stuff here guys, I don’t need a perfect Missouri accent, but at least get the right country down.

I’m honestly too depressed about this one to get into the plot. It’s a rough watch. It’s bad in a boring way, which is the greatest sin a film can commit. Even Emilia Perez which I found derogatory and hurtful gives me something to look at. This was like a Hallmark version of a horror movie, very technically watchable, but absolutely nothing going on under the hood. It looked cheap, felt cheap, was cheap.

1/5