Clown in a Cornfield

Clown in a Cornfield, based on a young adult novel, started out, very briefly, in a positive way. The setting was warm and glowing and really felt, for someone who has never been to the non-city midwest (Chicago is the extent of it for me), like what I'd want a dark autumn night in say Iowa would feel like. Unfortunately that is the film's high point, other than a decent lead performance from Katie Douglas, who reminded me of a merging of Linda Cardellini in Freaks & Geeks, and Janeane Garafalo. It keeps an OK momentum during the first half, but man oh man does the quality slide fast during the painful second half.

A good example of the terrible writing was the start of the third act, with what seems to be the entire roster of the small town high school gathering for a party in a barn out in said cornfield. It's where the main massacre begins, and while the killer clowns have their eyes on a specific set of kids to take out, its miraculous how all the other kids vanish into thin air with no trace or mention of them ever being there. One quick camera pan, and POOF, they're all gone. How convenient. I can suspend all sense of reality as much as the next person, but there is a line, and this film walked over that quite impressively here.

There were a couple funny kills, and again the lead was decent and for a very brief moment at the start, I thought "OK maybe this will be ok." But no, it's terrible. And no, it's not just that it "isn't for me," as in my age range, because I don't remember the films from my age range that WERE for me, being this bad years later. No one is going to "appreciate this after some time has passed" or following a "re-evaluation" in 10 years.

Avoid this unless you're drunk, bored and alone.