Book Review // Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

Sorry for the image. Already given away so can’t retake lol.

There are certain books where you pretty much know what you're getting yourself into from the title.

Clown in a Cornfield is one of those books.

A creepy mascot. A small town. A bunch of teenagers. Generational conflict. And, eventually, quite a lot of people getting horribly murdered. I picked this one up because I was in the mood for a proper slasher, and Adam Cesare's Clown in a Cornfield certainly delivers on that front. It's fast, bloody and doesn't spend too long hanging around before things start going spectacularly wrong.

And, as you might expect, it has also left me with a few ideas to steal for Sector 102.

The Details

Title: Clown in a Cornfield (buy on Amazon)
Author: Adam Cesare
Genre: Horror / Young Adult / Slasher
Setting: Kettle Springs, Missouri

The Story

Quinn Maybrook and her father arrive in Kettle Springs looking for a fresh start.

Unfortunately, Kettle Springs isn't exactly thriving.

The town has been slowly dying since its factory shut down, and what remains is a community increasingly divided between the older generation and the local teenagers.

The adults blame the kids. The kids blame the adults. And somewhere in the middle of all this is Frendo the Clown, the town mascot.

Which would normally be harmless. Except Frendo has apparently decided that the best way to solve Kettle Springs' problems is to start murdering teenagers. Because if everyone you're arguing with is dead, technically you've won the argument.

A Proper Slasher

The thing I enjoyed most about Clown in a Cornfield is that it knows exactly what sort of book it wants to be. This is a slasher. There's a creepy killer, there's a collection of teenagers who are increasingly aware that something very wrong is happening, and there's a steadily increasing body count. It's quick-paced and bloody without getting bogged down in loads of unnecessary explanation, and Frendo is a pretty bloody effective horror villain.

The whole idea of taking something designed to make people feel happy and turning it into something threatening is a classic horror trick, but it works here. A mascot should be safe. A mascot should be stupid. A mascot should be something you take a photo with at a local event. You don't expect it to be chasing you with a weapon. That's where the character works particularly well.

The setting is almost as important as the killer. Kettle Springs is a dying little town, and that gives the story something more than just teenagers get murdered by a clown. There's a genuine conflict running underneath everything. The older residents believe the younger generation is responsible for the town's decline. The kids see the adults as stuck in the past and determined to blame them for everything. Neither side is particularly innocent.

That generational conflict gives the murders a slightly nastier edge because Frendo isn't simply killing randomly. He's essentially acting on an ideology. He's trying to "fix" the town. Obviously, murdering teenagers isn't exactly a great community redevelopment strategy, but this is horror, so we'll let that slide.

I thought the characters worked well enough for what this book is trying to do. Some of them definitely fall into familiar slasher territory. You've got characters who feel like they have wandered in from other horror movies, and some don't get quite enough development to make their deaths particularly devastating. But honestly? I wasn't reading this expecting a deep character study.

I wanted a fun horror story with a creepy killer and some suitably nasty deaths, and that's what I got. The younger characters also help sell the central conflict because you're seeing Kettle Springs through their eyes while simultaneously understanding why the older generation is so frustrated.

It's a simple setup, but it works.

The Horror

This is probably the biggest selling point for me. Clown in a Cornfield doesn't hang around. Once the killing starts, the book moves. There's plenty of blood, plenty of nasty moments and enough creative deaths to keep things interesting. It's also got that slightly uncomfortable feeling that comes from watching something familiar become threatening. Frendo isn't some ancient demon from another dimension. He's a mascot. Something created to represent a town, and now that symbol has become the thing hunting its residents. That's a bloody good horror concept.

Final Thoughts

Clown in a Cornfield isn't trying to reinvent the slasher genre, and I don't think it needs to. It's a fast, entertaining and bloody horror read with a decent central idea and enough social commentary underneath the carnage to give it a little more meat. The generational conflict works, the setting is interesting, and Frendo makes for a suitably creepy killer. Some characters are fairly standard slasher fare and I wouldn't say everyone gets the emotional development they deserve, but that didn't really stop me from enjoying the book. If you're after something quick, nasty and creepy, this is definitely worth a look.

Fun? Yep.
Bloody? Absolutely.
Creepy? More than you'd expect from a bloke dressed as a clown.

And, naturally, my brain immediately started asking: How the hell can I use this in Sector 102?

I'm going to ignore the obvious stuff. I've already got clowns in Sector 102, and Mega-City One isn't exactly famous for its endless fields of corn. So what actually interests me here? The mascot!

The idea of taking something completely harmless and turning it into a local horror story feels like it could work brilliantly in Sector 102, and I think I already know who gets the short straw: Kidney Hut's Mascot

Imagine Kidney Hut having its own corporate mascot. Something ridiculous like a giant cartoon robot kidney. Maybe he's called The Kidney Kid and wears a cowboy hat. He's ultiimately a stupid corporate design. Every store has one, in this location (tbd), for years, the mascot has been used for promotions, children's events, block festivals and corporate propaganda. Then the juves start abusing him; They vandalise him, they steal parts of the costume, they post vid clips of themselves attacking him, they rip the head off, they set him on fire, they think it's hilarious. Until one night...

Kidney Hut's mascot comes back, and this time he's carrying something a lot more dangerous than a promotional sign. Suddenly the juves who spent years treating the mascot like a joke start disappearing. One gets dragged into a Kidney Hut storage room. Another is found hanging from a promotional display. Someone discovers that the mascot is missing and then the rumours start. The mascot has broken it’s programing. The mascot knows who has been abusing him, and the mascot has decided that the children need to be taught some respect.

The really fun part is that I wouldn't necessarily make him supernatural. He could simply be a malfunctioning promotional robot. That leaves the Justice Department with a very different problem. Is this a serial killer? A malfunctioning corporate asset? A disgruntled employee? Or has the mascot actually become something else? Maybe it looks and acts normal during store hours, so it’s hard to pinpoint the attacks on it? Isn’t it meant to shutdown at closing time? Who would believe the troubled Juves anyways?

"Kidney Hut: Keeping You Well Fed Since 2098."

Apparently, that includes keeping the juves healthy enough to be murdered another day. That's the sort of stupid, dark little story I could see fitting perfectly into Sector 102. Mix in the rules of don’t look back and we might have something here!

Until next time Drokk Heads!