After the film premiered at SXSW, our Alan French called the slasher film Clown in a Cornfield a “perfect crowd pleaser” and “a masterful showcase from one of horror’s most comedic figures.” Following a group of teens who find themselves being hunted down by their town’s lovable mascot, Frendo the Clown, Clown in a Cornfield feels like a send-up of classic horror cinema that is also set on forging its own path in the genre.

We at FandomWire got to speak with Clown in a Cornfield co-writer/director Eli Craig (Tucker & Dale vs. Evil) and author Adam Cesare, who wrote the book upon which the film was based. We discuss subverting audience expectations and making R-rated horror for teens. Check out the full interview below.

Well, it’s not succinct, but Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. I’ll throw that one out there, because it just felt similarly low bar set. I intentionally was like, “Let’s set this to be a campy, really silly film and be really funny, but have much deeper themes.” So I kind of love that.

I think Stephen King does that quite a bit, in a way. It almost feels like a Stephen King mashup with clowns and cornfields. Children of the Corn feels that way. “Okay, that feels silly. I want to see it.” And then it’s not silly at all.

Exactly, yeah. He does it in his short fiction, too. Like I think of The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill, which it sounds like Proust; it doesn’t sound like it’s gonna be so silly, and then it kind of is.

I love that we’re throwing out Proust now. The [Portrait of an] Artist as a Young Man. (He laughs.)

This Frendo is a very working-collar man; he’s a working-class clown and very human, and I think that is sort of the scariest part. I think it’s scary what humanity can do. Bringing up Tucker & Dale — I hate to keep bringing it back to that — but Tucker & Dale is like, “No, you kids are overestimating the evil that’s out there, and by overestimating it, you’re killing yourselves.” And this is sort of the polar opposite of that: you’re underestimating how evil human nature can be.

What I tried to do and what Adam also had in his book was to set something up where it could be anything. We have such a history of these paranormal clowns in the world, or alien clowns, and I kind of wanted the initial part of this movie to be uncertainty about where this clown is going to come from and then bring it back to something very human.

I think that’s part and parcel with your first question — that idea of setting up expectations of a very explicit title. The idea of Clown in a Cornfield almost dares you to be like, “Oh, it’s Pennywise meets Children of the Corn.” It almost dares you to dismiss it, and then you reveal that it’s actually not whatever picture I just put in your head. I didn’t lie to you — it actually is that thing — but there’s some differences to it.

I don’t know that it’s so much setting up things with a low bar, but I like messing with people’s expectations and then trying to over-deliver on things in all my writing. I think that’s a good thing. Sell the sizzle and the steak; don’t just sell one or the other. That’s kind of my policy.

I mean, from my perspective, the most horrific thing is when you don’t really have a choice. And part of the mechanism — and this is one thing I invented for the movie, it wasn’t in the book — I call it a “Frendo box,” a little musical box, and when that thing pops, you’re doomed. In a way, The Monkey had a similar thing, and I didn’t see that movie till recently, but that setup to me is so horrific. That there’s a fate awaiting you that you’re not able to escape. 

I was just re-watching the old Body Snatchers, and it’s like, “These people have no chance!” You know they’re gonna be converted into pod people; it doesn’t matter if they’re making the right choices or anything. And in horror movies, there’s a trope of making the bad decisions, and there’s a little bit of that I play with here. Like, “Back in the cornfield? What are you, crazy? Don’t go in the cornfield!”

But ultimately, the people that are gonna die probably aren’t gonna make it, but I want some people to have a chance too! There’s always some surprises.

I love the jack-in-the-box conceit. It’s a very filmic thing. Even though it’s not a throwback, it almost reminds me of that crop of early 2000s slashers. There’s something almost supernatural, something almost Final Destination, about the music box. And I just watched the film for maybe the ninth time, and it was another thing I was noticing closer. I was like, “Wow, that was really smart that Eli put that in there.”

But yeah, you can make all the right decisions in life and still get hit by a bus. That’s what real horror is. And we’ve got a lot of fun, safe horror here, but we’ve got over all of it this umbrella of existential horror, which is great to me. You get to have your cake and be sad and depressed about it too.

Craig: There’s also this old element of, in the ‘90s, there was sex. If you were off having sex, that was the cue you were about to get killed. And I tried to play with that as well as a theme in this and sort of reverse that a bit. But there’s cues in a lot of old horror movies of “Oh, these people are doomed.” And, of course, wanting to have sex and being a teenager is just a natural thing. Good luck not wanting to do that as a teenager. (He laughs.)

FandomWire: Clown in a Cornfield features teen characters, but the film is rated R, which would typically be aimed at an older audience. That’s not to say teens don’t see R-rated movies — I definitely found my way to see R-rated movies when I was a teen — but how did you balance making this something that appeals to adult horror fans without forsaking the generation it’s about and arguably for?

Craig: I mean, to me, I just don’t want to underestimate them. It’s like you say, we all grew up watching R-rated horror films and then saying, “Well, this movie’s not *for* me.” So I think there’s this weird dichotomy that older people come up with that teens really want to watch “light horror.” I wanted to make sort of hard horror that was still entry horror.

I would love if this is a first horror movie at 12 — in fact, I’ve seen some kids that are 12 years old in the screenings. Younger, even! This kid, when I just watched it in LA, was 11, and he loved every minute. Never closed his eyes. He was sitting right in front of me. He was turning around and high-fiving me.

Cesare: Ah, that’s so good! Such a great thing!

Craig: “I love this moment with the head being decapitated!” I mean, his dad was just like, “My son loves horror. I don’t know what to tell you.” So I want to be that first movie that, say, in 20 years, that kid is having an interview like this and a guy like you is saying, “What was the first experience you had that made you want to be a horror film director?” And he says, “I saw Clown in a Cornfield in the theater.”

I don’t think it’s “horror light” that gets kids. Five Nights at Freddy’s, of course, was trying to get the widest possible audience. But all the kids I know make fun of that movie. They don’t love Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Cesare: Why are we throwing shots at Five Nights at Freddy’s?!?! Every time I’m on a podcast with you, you’re like, “These motherf*ckers over at Blumhouse!”

Craig: No, no, oh God! I love Blumhouse! Okay, I’m just saying they made a choice to go very easy on it. And I wanted to do something that was a little bit pushing the boundaries of what they’re into, and I had the chance to. The producers were like, “Go, Eli, go!”

Cesare: I mean, the books are teen books. The books are YA books. They’re meant for a teen audience, and they’re in the young adult section. I’m technically a children’s author, in a weird way, even though if you read the books and you look at the movie, they’re both “R-rated.” 

But I think that’s just a misconception that people have, and very similar to what Eli said, just swap filmmaking for writing. It’s kind of my thing now. It’s been five years since the first Clown in a Cornfield came out. That was my first YA horror book, and I’ve only written teen books since then because I love the space. 

I love the idea that if you’re an adult horror writer, people are gonna be like, “Who’s your favorite horror writer?” and Stephen Graham Jones is gonna come close, but it’s always gonna be people saying Stephen King. You’re never gonna get that shot to be someone’s favorite or someone’s first.

But with the teen audience, you really can. I want to write stories that speak to teens, that get them excited about the genre, because I’ve made this my life. I love this genre so much, and I like to proselytize for both the written word and cinema for this genre. And I just want kids to enjoy the ride.

And I think part of that comes from not watering it down for them. I don’t know if some parents are ready to hear this, but some teenagers swear. Some teenagers drink. Some teenagers get their heads chopped off. So you’ve got to be true to it, I think. And that’s part of the reason I’m so enamored with Eli’s film — that R-ratedness. It really makes me so happy.

Clown in a Cornfield is now in theaters.