In a fading Midwestern town, the local legend of Frendo the clown becomes all too real as teenagers start to go missing one by one, before meeting spectacularly sticky ends. With chills, memorable set pieces and messy mayhem aplenty, CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD will be sure to electrify both young horror audiences and fans of the classic slasher movies. Based on the bestselling book and from the producers of SMILE comes a terrifyingly enjoyable and thrilling old school horror for a new generation, directed by Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil).
As Clown in a Cornfield prepares to slash it’s way into Australian cinemas on May 8, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the films writer-director, Eli Craig, about the influence of 70s horror, and making a new horror flick to mess up the current generation!
Nick: It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Eli! Thanks for taking the time to chat.
Eli Craig: Thank you, man. It’s so good to meet you.
Nick: I loved this movie. I had so much fun with it. And one of the reasons it’s so fun is because you’re able to mix comedy and horror so seamlessly. I’m curious to know how you see the relationship between two genres that feel so innately opposite to each other.
Eli Craig: I was actually just with Joe Hill [author and son of Stephen King] at the Overlook Film Festival, and he was asked something similar, so I’m going to give him credit for this. But he said horror and comedy are the same. They hit the same part of your reptilian brain that sort of responds before you can think, right? It’s a response thing.
And the reason I think they work so well together is because horror primes the brain for wanting relief, and when you have a certain amount of suspense and adrenaline in your body, you want to find a way out of it, right? And to me, it’s not that different to laughter, which actually becomes much bigger than it would, and more meaningful, because there’s some part of human existence that loves farce, that appreciates the ridiculousness of this human journey where we all live and die. It’s this super sad but silly journey we make.
When I’ve been through any trauma, or if we’ve been deeply affected by something, and maybe we cry a little bit, but shortly after, we’re laughing about something stupid. I love mixing those two things. I also find that humour gives us hope, and weirdly enough, I think I make hopeful movies. It’s not hopeful for the kids who die [laughs], but it’s hopeful for the ones that don’t. They have something to look forward to!
Nick: So much of the enjoyment of the film comes through the creativity and unique nature of the kills you’ve created. Do you just have a rolodex of ideas when it comes to crafting kills for the film, or are they sort of dictated by character and narrative decisions?
Eli Craig: Really, it’s just me yelling out strange ideas to my wife and two kids, who are 10 and 18 [laughs]. If somebody recorded our conversations, they’d probably take me away because I’m just talking about ways to kill college kids on film!
There’s a funny story – years ago when I made Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, my son who’s now 18 was about 5 or so years old, and it was right after the film came out, and he ran up to one of his teachers, and unfortunately he had seen some of Tucker and Dale… and he said to his teacher, “It’d be really fun if a college kid fell into a woodchipper!” And I got a call right away from the school being like, “Your son has serious issues!” [laughs]. And we had to explain that I had just made this film.
But, yeah, I just unload all of these ideas, and once you get the idea, you just keep adding on to it. Like, at first, with the bench press death, it was just the weights. But I knew I needed to add on to that, and that’s where the saw came into it all, and you just elevate it more.
Nick: You lovingly wear the influence of 70s and 80s slashers on the film’s sleeve with a lot of pride. How do you balance paying homage to that incredible era of horror films, but place your own unique voice on the genre?
Eli Craig: Look, I mean to some degree people criticise me for paying too much homage or following the tropes too much. But I think there is something comforting about watching horror tropes playing out. I enjoy movies that follow the tropes sometimes.
But, for me, I want to make the audience feel nice and safe and secure in their own little world of predictability, and then they think everything will play out in a certain way, then I yank the rug out from underneath them! And suddenly you’re not sure anymore if you can trust the filmmaker to do what you thought they should do. That’s part of my process. It’s very interactive with the audience. I want them to have these expectations because of their knowledge of horror, and then I want to change those expectations.
Nick: Without spoiling anything, you do that very well in this film! Speaking of influences, I saw Tucker and Dale vs. Evil when I was 14. I worked at Blockbuster, and that was one of those movies I vividly remember taking home and watching, and it was so formative in my horror discovery at that age. You strike me as a video store kid – what were the films you were renting and watching growing up?
Eli Craig: Boy, you just made me feel so old talking about Blockbuster! I mean, you know, I had an older brother who just loved to corrupt me and scare me. And he was just as into film, so we would watch all kinds of weird movies together, like Evil Dead 2. That was a big one for me. When I watched Evil Dead 2, I was like, “This is so exciting and gory!” It just blew my mind. It became a staple, even in college, to watch and rewatch and rewatch.
The Reanimator was something I saw way too young and thought there was such a unique scale with horror. I don’t know if this was a video store rental, so I can’t remember where it was in the chronology of when it was release, but The Exorcist! I watched it way too young, and I was just tormented by it. It was truly horrifying.
I watched a lot of horror films when I was young, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street. Those 80s horror films just live in my brain. And I don’t know, there’s probably people out their geekier than me when it comes to those movies and can see the influencers more so. Sometimes they do blend together a little bit, but I love them.
Nick: I was the same! Before I was 12, 13 years old, I hated the idea of horror. But I just forced myself to watch so many of them, and now I love the genre and it leads me to chatting with horror filmmakers I love like you, man! And now, you’re making the classic horror films for a new generation, which is awesome.
Eli Craig: Ah, that’s awesome. That’s why I wait so long between making new movies, so that I can just affect each younger generation and mess them up a little bit!
Thank you to Eli for his time, and to StudioCanal Australia for organising the interview. Clown in a Cornfield is in cinemas May 8.
