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Interview with Eli Craig, director of awesome horror movie ‘Clown in a Cornfield’

‘Clown in a Cornfield’ director Eli Craig: “Don’t get me started on the history of clowns because it’s very deep.”

In new horror film Clown in a Cornfield, there are some expected tropes that you know are a must-have in slasher films. But, being the satirical horror movie that it is, there’s also a bunch of fun surprises to look out for.

The storyline of Clown in a Cornfield sees brooding teen, Quinn (Katie Douglas), only just getting along with her depressed and daggy father (Aaron Abrams), after they’ve made the move to a sleepy Midwest town, settling into a house not far from the local now-decrepit corn syrup factory.

Soon after falling in with a group of troublemaking teens, Quinn and her new-found buddies are being traumatised by a freaky clown named Frendo.

The film is a great adaptation of the cult novel of the same name, and it has been directed by relative newcomer Eli Craig, who brings with him a fresh perspective on the horror/satire genres.

Here, Eli speaks with Cream about the story behind his new movie, horror films that have inspired his work, and why clowns are so frigging scary.

Interview by Antonino Tati

Hi Eli. Congratulations on a great film in ‘Clown in a Cornfield’. With the words ‘clown’ and ‘cornfield’ in the title, one might think this is going to be a traditional horror movie but I see that it goes far beyond that genre.

Yes, I wouldn’t call a clown or cornfield the theme of the movie; it’s more like the backdrop that gives the story its absurdist and nightmarish feel. My goal when I make any movie is to expand beyond perceived boundaries of the genre. In fact, I kind of like using genre as a reference point for people so that I can then surprise them when I break the mold. Ultimately I consider this a horror-action-comedy with social satire – and a lot of heart.

Clowns are perceived as being scary to many people – some even find them to be horrifying. Why is that such a frightening looking character was introduced to the masses as a means to ‘cheer’ them up? For example, in the early days of circus and in 1950s advertising?

I think clowns are very primal and perhaps our reaction to them is more a priori – or built into the human psyche – in the same way babies laugh when you make silly faces at them. Clowns of some form exist in every culture, and jesters go all the way back to Egyptian days. Don’t get me started on the history of clowns because it’s very deep, but I will say this… The original Western clowns were court jesters that entertained kings and nobles with satire and even mockery – which would sometimes get them into trouble, or even killed. But they were often the only ones who could speak truth to power with just the right amount of humour and satire mixed in. Sometimes when people’s guards are taken down, you’re able to deliver a message to them without making them defensive. That is what the advertising is about, I guess – surprise, laughter, and then selling you some cereal.

‘Clown in a Cornfield’ is based on the novel by Adam Cesare. Did you veer far from the book’s storyline or did you very much stick to Cesare’s narrative?

My goal was to make the best movie I could while keeping the themes of the story and the most important character arcs. Some characters aren’t totally the same; the kills are heightened; and some scenes in the book had to be condensed down, but Adam Cesare really loves the movie and think it stays true to his vision while adding my own spin, so that makes me happy.

The titular clown is named Frendo – again, playing with that notion that clowns are fun and friendly. Were you, as director, along with the producers, happy to keep that name – being the name of the clown in the original book – or did you bandy about a few other options?

Frendo and his backstory is one of the coolest things about the book so we didn’t want to change Frendo’s name. Our goal was to adapt the most cinematic version of him possible but to keep his backstory of being a mascot for the 1930s Baypen Corn Syrup factory. I thought it was very fitting that he was basically a symbol of the American Dream back in the day and as it is now, he’s aged into a symbol of the American Nightmare.

FUN FACT: Eli Craig is actress Sally Fields’ son!

Your film was produced by the people behind Smile. I was watching Smile 2 the other day and loved the idea of Jack Nicholson’s son, Ray, playing a side antagonist in the movie – putting on a smile that almost rivalled Jack’s unnerving one in The Shining. Fans of horror and its sub-genres love to see intertextual nods like this, and I noticed there are a couple in Clown in a Cornfield . Were those references conscious or unconscious?

It’s always a little of both for me. My understanding of horror lives more like a bouillabaisse in my mind than a catalogue, so I don’t always know where it comes from. The Jaws element is certainly very conscious. The meta elements of Scream and certainly Texas Chainsaw, Halloween, Friday The 13th, all live forever in my head so they’re in there, just like I say, as a kind of soup. I’ll leave it to others to pick out all the references.

What benefits does film have over the written word in being able to scare the viewer/reader?

Um… sound, score, lighting, pacing, physical entrapment, everything! That’s why it’s so fun to bring a scary book alive, because you can magnify it a thousand-fold. On the flipside, there’s not as much left to your imagination when you watch a movie, so some readers get very immersed in the book and imagine it differently than it plays out on screen. For me, part of the fun of an adaptation is seeing how someone chose to bring it to life.

Did you go back and study movies featuring clowns as antagonists, or for that matter, storylines set in cornfields?

Well, IT is one of my favourite horror movies ever so I didn’t have to go back to study that. But I did watch Children of the Corn again. Killer Klowns From Outer Space isn’t really my jam so I didn’t go back to that. Of course I knew of Terrifier and Terrifier 2 but we made this before Terrifier 3 came out so I didn’t know that Art the Clown would become such a massive sensation. We were originally supposed to come out around Halloween of 2024 and so that would have been really weird if we were head to head against Art [hence a delay in release].

Did you use any tactics on set a la Hitchcock and Kubrick to frighten the hell out of the cast for optimum results?

I didn’t need to. Everything was in camera – the cornfield itself and the clown mask. The fear is pretty real in the film.

The film already has a high 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes; is it a chore to keep tabs on ratings and reviews of your films?

Not when it’s a 90%. It becomes more of a chore if it starts to go down.

What do you think of the new media and modern forms of feedback – now that everyone is a critic online? Do you kind of miss the days when all was dictated and critiqued by one-way legacy media?

Not really. I mean [one of Eli’s previous films] Tucker & Dale vs Evil became a cult classic only because of the people seeing it. The first critics who saw it definitely blew me off and called Tucker & Dale a bad student film. So I guess I’ll take the masses over the arrogant, elitist critics any day.

‘Clown in a Cornfield’ is in cinemas from May 8, 2025.

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