“Thunderbolts*” certainly scared off the competition in its second weekend at the domestic box office. This sometimes happens the weekend after the opening of a huge blockbuster. Other studios will know that they can’t compete against the powerhouse, so they hold off on releasing anything that they think has the potential to be a big or even midsize hit. When that happens, I have to review either a holdover or a newcomer that can only hope to become, at most, a tiny hit. “Clown in a Cornfield” definitely falls into the latter category. This thing is cheap even by horror movie standards, yet in a minor victory, it managed to open in fifth place for the weekend. I’d admire its pluck, but there’s no sleeper hit here, just a movie that didn’t fail too badly when it was sent out to die.

Image

The film follows Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas), a teenager moving to the rural town of Kettle Springs with her doctor father Glenn (Aaron Abrams). Sullen and supposedly shy, Quinn is expectedly standoffish toward her unsophisticated classmate Rust (Vincent Muller). But she’s able to make surprisingly fast friends with the cool clique: jock Matt (Alexandre Martin Deakin), joker Tucker (Ayo Solanke), friendly Ronnie (Verity Marks), mean Janet (Cassandra Potenza), and leader Cole (Carson MacCormac). Cole is the son of wealthy corn syrup magnate Arthur Hill (Kevin Durand), who chews scenery so viciously in straight scenes that it’s hard not to picture him delivering villainous exposition by the movie’s end.

It soon becomes apparent that the adults in the town don’t much care for teenagers, especially Cole’s group. Teachers, shopkeepers, and the local sheriff (Will Sasso) seem to have a vendetta against the kids, punishing them for pranks that they only sometimes pull. Quinn knows that it’s normal for kids to “think” authority figures are out to get them, and it’s not like the teens completely abstain from mischief, but something seems off about the dynamic. Cole explains that it’s because the group is being unfairly blamed for a recent fire at the corn syrup factory that had a devastating economic effect on the town. Quinn takes him at his word that the fire was an unrelated accident, but should she trust him? Can any teenager ever be trusted?

Never mind filling in blanks about the town’s past, there’s a killer on the loose! Somebody dressed as Frendo the Clown, the mascot of the corn syrup company, is killing off teens that have upset the establishment. As a matter of fact, their master plan seems to be to attack a group gathering for a booze/drugs/sex/music party set in a barn. And the barn is right next to… that’s right, a high-end golf course. Just kidding, it’s a cornfield. Get ready for some deaths by pitchfork.

I wasn’t digging “Clown in a Cornfield,” and not just because it doesn’t do scares and violence well. It doesn’t, but I think the bigger problem is with the characters. These are some of the least-likeable protagonists I’ve seen in a while. The “broken family getting set up in a new town” trope has been done to death in every genre, but especially horror (and don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, “adult is barely able to keep custody of a child and scary happenings are the last thing they need”). Quinn and her father just seem like they’re this movie’s plug-in for character types, not characters of their own, and nothing about their chemistry with one another seems natural. And this is to say nothing of the collection of one-dimensional clown fodder that make up the circle of friends or shady townspeople. I live in New York City, and I’m about as likely to see this movie again as I am to see an actual cornfield outside my window.

Grade: D

“Clown in a Cornfield” is rated R for bloody horror violence, language throughout, and teen drinking. Ita running time is 96 minutes.

Contact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu.