Easily, one of my most anticipated films going into SXSW was the premier of the feature length adaptation of Philly writer Adam Cesare’s first book in his hit slasher YA series Clown in Cornfield (2020). Directed by Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale Vs Evil) the film follows Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) a street smart Philly girl who just moved to the small rural farm town of Kettle Springs, Missouri with her dad. Quinn immediately gets the attention of the local bad boy Cole (Carson MacCormac), who’s also the son of the owner of the Baypen Corn Syrup company, which once employed the majority of the sleepy town.
Cole and the gang’s favorite pastime is crafting mini horror videos featuring the Corn Syrup’s beloved clown mascot Frendo, who they’ve turned into a serial killer in their videos, hunting their friends in their viral scare skits. This perversion of the town’s beloved clown mascot who calls back to a simpler time is an unintentionally sharp metaphor by the kids; that is until life imitates art and Cole’s friends start dropping thanks to a killer on the loose in a Frendo mask. The narrative eventually pits the teens of the town against Frendo, who’s hunting anyone not yet old enough to vote as we soon discover stands for something surprisingly bleak when all is said and done.
When I heard the film was premiering at one of the best fests for genre, I reached out to the writer of the series, Adam Cesare who is a local Philly horror fan like myself, to chat about what the experience was like for his creation to be premiering at the Paramount at SXSW. Over his career as a writer Adam’s written about 15 books in the adult horror space, and Clown in the Cornfield, which came out in 2020 was the author’s first foray into the YA and his first book with a larger publisher. That book was quickly licensed for a feature film adaptation and as you will read miraculously was finished and premiered at one of the bigger festivals for genre in the US.
So, clowns are sort of having a real moment in horror genre, you know, Art has like been initiated as a full-on icon at this point. So why write a clown slasher book?
Adam Cesare: It’s funny, because books take forever. From like an accepted pitch to manuscript revisions, it (The first book) came out in 2020. But, I could look back at my emails, and it was probably like four years before, like knowing that it was like really actually going to happen with Harper. So, it was a long time, not just in the production pipeline, but a long time to write. But clowns weren’t as much having their moment during the drafting of it.
I love Stephen King. Clearly, we stole the Stephen King font for the books. But I didn’t want to do a Stephen King thing. I wanted to be like, let’s use the title, and let’s use the idea of clowns to lure people into something that is like way more John Carpenter, than Stephen King. I like that the whole series is promising you one thing and then not really delivering, but not in an unsatisfying way – but kind of giving you another thing. I’ve tried to keep that with the sequels too. So, I think part of the, the fun of the Clown in a Cornfield books is that it is a clown, but it’s not. He’s a guy in a clown mask.
It could be that mask could be anything, you know, in the film, it’s this symbol of like a bygone era of like small town Americana. That is what that kind of clown represents and what it represents to me and what I wanted it to represent in the book. So, that’s really the honest answer is that, yeah, maybe in order to get a book published, you say clown to, give images of Pennywise and then creatively you’re just not interested in like stepping on anyone’s shoes, or chasing any trends.
And I just love slashers. I love the structure of slasher stories, especially in that first book, like the sequels kind of deviate, which slasher sequels do. But it’s that idea that kids aren’t scared of a lone guy coming and killing them while they’re babysitting, they’re scared of someone showing up at their school. Teen fears are bigger now and that’s kind of what the books are about, specifically teenage fears of this era, and how do we apply that mask to what they’re worried about now.
That kind of goes into my next question. I really liked the fact that Frendo is a real person, he’s not like the unstoppable supernatural shape. What was the thought process behind that decision? Because that then opens you up to a whole list of challenges. Because he’s vulnerable. Friendo can get hurt and even die – there’s a real game there at that point.
Adam Cesare: When you start writing a slasher, and Stephen Graham Jones has talked about this, ad nauseam and he has books that deal with it too, but this idea of like, you’re going to pick from kind of two slasher camps. There’s either going to be the whodunit slasher, or the supernatural slasher. And it’s this kind of a reductionist view, ’cause there’s maybe more shades of that. But that generally you’re looking at that and it’s like when you choose the whodunit lane, you’ve got to think of almost back converting it to be like, well, what are the motivations and what are the limitations?
I liked the idea of building a slasher from the ground up, trying to take little pieces from slasher mythology, pieces from the things that I like to see when I watch slasher movies, and have them basically be embodied in this character. That’s how we got to where Frendo is and like how, you know, at times he’s menacing, at times bumbling at times. It depends on the moment you catch him.
So, I really wanted Frendo to inhabit a little spot on the slasher shelf and on the slasher chart that doesn’t wholly get occupied by anyone. There’s some of the goofiness of Ghost Face. And I also really like horror stories that don’t hold the villain in as much regard as maybe the villain holds themselves. I think that’s funny and I think it’s safe to say the movie is a horror comedy, because Eli Craig, he’s made horror comedies in the past. I think people who see the movie and then go read the book or vice versa, are going to be surprised by how faithful it is.
But also, how that tone is twisted just a little bit. Like it’s a funnier take on the exact same subject matter.
Speaking of Eli, what was the script writing process like? Because I know Clown was sort of licensed rather quickly. Did you have any input on the script? What was that process like for you? Or was it very much that thing was happening over here and you were over there working?
Adam Cesare: Temple Hill Entertainment, who made the movie was so inclusive. Like you hear kind of horror stories of like people getting adapted. Where they kind of get pushed aside or pushed out the back door. But as a production company, Temple Hill was keeping me so in the Loop, like I read Carter Blanchard’s early draft of the script and I was allowed to give notes. And then like RLJE and Shudder are including me on every email and stuff like that. It’s so nice. I have friends who’ve had movies made and they did not get this treatment.
I was a film major, but I subscribe to auteur theory so I know that’s Eli’s movie. So, I tread very lightly. I literally gave one note on the first script and I was – ‘you may want to do this’, and they took the note, which is great. Because I can say I’m, I’m one of the few authors that had a hundred percent of his notes implemented into the script. (Laughs)
Otherwise that I was just like a cheerleader. I went to set, I had meetings with Eli before they started shooting. They took me to set and I got to walk around that town, like where the parade takes place. I’ve been writing about this location for six or seven years now. It’s crazy. There’s stuff that you never see on screen, that the production did. Like they made that town over into Kettle Springs.
Please tell me, you stole one of the little Jack in the Boxes from the film.
Adam Cesare: I don’t have a Jack in the Box. That’s the thing. (Laughs) I didn’t think until I saw the movie that was going to be the thing to steal. But I got a clown nose from the parade and a really nice flask that was given out as a crew gift with Frendo and the Baypen Corn Syrup logo on it.
What’s this week been like I mean, Clown is premiering at South by Southwest Monday night, that is like one of the best film festivals for genre in Austin, Texas, where they premiered, Evil Dead Rise and Immaculate. So you’re premiering there. What is it like as the guy who started this thing? Because your DNA is so entwined with this thing you’ve spent years of your life on.
Adam Cesare: It’s so odd. It’s really cool. But it’s also like, when you work in publishing and when you work these fields where you have so many meetings and you hear from so many people that are like, we we’re going to work together. This is going to be great. And you just know, like at the 10th time you hear that, and whatever it is you were talking about falls apart. You start to build a little bit of a callous and to be like, that’s not happening. Like, you start to be like, well, that was, that was a nice meeting, but I’ll never talk to that guy again. Not that I became so jaded, but it’s like, movies fall apart all the time.
You can film a movie, you can have a good movie, and then it could just not come out because someone wanted a tax break. Like to literally to like that point, even after I had gone a set, I was like, ‘Hey, you, this is exciting, this is cool, but don’t get too excited’.
I think with the South by Southwest thing, I’ve given myself permission to be like, ‘oh, it’s really real’. Like, you know, with these last couple days with the poster and the trailer, it’s been a real head trip and I’ve never really done something like this before. So, I’m excited to go. Graciously, they’ve brought me down. So, I get to go to the premiere in the Paramount, we’re in the big theater. It’s like 1500 seat auditorium. Like old grand Opry House. I just hope, I just hope people enjoy the movie. I hope people see what I see when I look at the movie
I dug the hell out of it. Speaking of that, one of the things that surprised me the most is, it’s a young adult book, but yes, it’s a very R-rated film. When did that conversation come in and when did decision come in, because it’s gory as hell! When I sat down to watch it. I was like, oh, this is a YA thing, this is going to be fun. Possibly a hard PG 13. No, it is like (laughs), tons of the red stuff. Chainsaws, cattle prods, oh shit.
Adam Cesare: Yeah, there’s a lot of great kills in here. And that chainsaw kill is beautiful. I love it. It’s my favorite kill in the movie. And it goes by pretty quick, but it’s so kinetic and so you know, we’re fans and we’re students of this stuff. Like, if the movie just had that chainsaw kill in it, I’d be like, that’s a good movie. (laughs) But the fact that the rest of it works is awesome. So like, reading Carter’s script the first time I literally sat down, because I was just sent the script. I wasn’t sent any other information. That was my worry was like, you can get away with so much in publishing and still call it Teen. My books are, if you adapted them word for word, they’d be hard R movies.
Like, they’d be very R rated movies. So, in my mind, I was like, Temple Hill – this was before they had done Smile and Smile two. But they’re known for like the Hate You Give, Maze Runner, Twilight, like they’re known for YA adaptations at PG-13. And I just had this fear opening the script, and then I read the first kills in the script. And then I started counting up the ‘Fucks’, cause I was like, you could only say that like once in a PG-13 movie, (Laughs). Then I realized, I was like, oh, they’re going for an R and I read like 10 pages of the script and I texted the producer and I was like, ‘this is R right’ and he’s like, ‘oh, for sure’. It made me feel so much better about the whole process.
So, any reader who is a hardcore horror fan and wants the red stuff, and wants gore, this film has it, and has been intended to have it since day one. Like that was years ago now that I was reading that first script. I don’t think that negates the teen focus of the movie and I hope teens find a way to see it with us still getting the money. Like, I hope teens don’t buy a ticket to Wild Robot and then sneak in like what happened with Terrifier 3. I hope that we have like really cool ticket takers that will let a bunch of 16 year-olds into this R-rated movie because, I think they should see it. I think it’s still meant for a wide audience, but I think it’s still meant to speak to the teen experience in a certain way.
I assume if this does well, you’re going to make another one?
Adam Cesare: That’s what I’m telling everyone. I’m telling all my readers. Everyone who likes the sequels better than the first book, which I’m partial to. I think they actually go in ascending order. I probably like Clown two a little bit better than the first one. Clown three is probably my favorite book I’ve written, and I’ve written like 15 books. So, like, I would love them to make those movies. But I also, I understand the economics of it. Like, people got to go see the this one. So I’m not going to put the cart in front of the horse on that one. I have been for a little while now, writing Clown in a Cornfield four, which I can’t tell you the subtitle to because editor’s still a little mad that I told people I was writing the fourth book.
But yeah, that that’ll be out next year, and there’s an epilogue in book three that kind of spells out pretty closely where the story goes. I love the Clown in the Cornfield series. I want to keep doing it, but I also, I want to write other things. Also next year, probably later next year I’ve got a vampire book, coming out called Blood Sick. It’s vampires, kind of as an STD (laughs) running rampant through a small town. I just love vampire stuff. I wanted to do something, supernatural. That’s my next few years.
