Title: Clown in a Cornfield
Festival (section): Narrative Spotlight
Director: Eli Craig
Logline: Quinn and her father have just moved to the quiet town of Kettle Springs hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she discovers a fractured community that has fallen on hard times after the treasured Baypen Corn Syrup Factory burned down. As the locals bicker amongst themselves and tensions boil over, a sinister, grinning figure emerges from the cornfields to cleanse the town of its burdens, one bloody victim at a time. Welcome to Kettle Springs. The real fun starts when Frendo the clown comes out to play.
Panelists: Eli Craig, Adam Cesare, Katie Douglas, Aaron Abrams, Kevin Durand
Key quotes: I will say, the theatrical experience is something that we really need in our society, and just that place where wwe could share these experiences, good and bad and working our way through them. And this is such a great thing to share with people… I’m so proud to bring it to SXSW, into the theater, and who knows? Maybe we even get a sequel. – Eli Craig
The fun of the slasher for me is not just contained to one thing, it’s like the slasher is the perennial. How do you twist it? How do you keep it fresh? What do you do when you want to do a sequel, when you want to build a franchise in a weird way… I got to do that with the books and it would be so cool to see that happen here. – Adam Cesare
I know the movie is called Clown in a Cornfield, but there are lots of twists and stuff like that… which I think is the best thing about horror, is that it’s got this familiar template things, like evil clowns and cornfields and kids getting killed, but also this movie does a lot of surprising things. – Aaron Abrams
It’s not only in the fields, and it’s not only clowns. – Kevin Durand
There’s a lot of heart too. – Katie Douglas
Check out the full video discussion above.