Watching the Credits

Tag: horror

  • ‘Clown in a Cornfield’ carries more chainsaws and fewer metaphors

    ‘Clown in a Cornfield’ carries more chainsaws and fewer metaphors

    “Clown in a Cornfield” doesn’t do anything particularly new. And sometimes that’s a good thing.

    We live in a world of major event movies, cinematic universes and sequels upon sequels. There’s a web of connected, mixed-media IP — if you haven’t seen the latest Disney+ television show, you might not totally understand the turn in the third act of the movie you’re watching . A post-credits stinger hints at the next show you’re going to have to watch to keep up with the next movie. It can feel like a cyclical purgatory. 

    Outside of the franchise films, you could see the latest arthouse release, but perhaps you’re not in the mood. Even a standalone film like “Sinners” — the best and most entertaining blockbuster of the year — includes sadness and a depth that you just might not want to grapple with that day.

    Sometimes, you just want to grab a tub of popcorn and watch some creepy clowns chop up some feisty teens in and around a cornfield. On this and more, “Clown in a Cornfield” delivers.

    While the film definitely has some themes to chew on, there’s no “this movie is actually about trauma” you must reckon with. Or grief, postpartum depression or economic disparity. Nope, mostly just a clown with a chainsaw inflicting serious carnage.

    Set in the rural town of Kettle Springs, teenage Quinn (Katie Douglas) and her father (Aaron Abrams) have just moved from the city to start fresh. They find community has struggled to get its footing back since the burning down of the local corn syrup factory. Quinn meets Cole (Carson MacCormac) and his clique of filmmaking teens who produce a YouTube series about a killer clown. Soon after, the real thing turns up and sends the teens running, and the town reeling.

    Based on a 2020 novel of the same name, the strongest asset of this tractor terror slasher is its humor. A talented young cast led by Douglas ride the confused emotional peaks and valleys of a teenage friend group. The red herrings around the mystery of the killer’s identity have some hilarious payoffs, and even the clown has some good bits. Everyone is on board for a good time.

    Douglas is a standout in the lead role. She balances sass and wit with a sadness behind the eyes. While her relationship with her father is the emotional centerpiece, her bond with her newfound friends is the most compelling dynamic when the slashing starts. Their banter is funny throughout and really kicks up when the clown cuts loose. You really want good things for that bunch. Too bad you won’t get them.

    Will Sasso (a face I am always delighted to see) plays the town’s sheriff, with Kevin Duran portraying the mayor and Cole’s father. Both men are good ol’ boys mortified by the prospects of change. The Trumpian America metaphor here is thinly veiled as elder members of the town battle the inevitability of generational change, and the teens that seem to be the culprits of it. The teens — while certainly held up as the heroes — aren’t particularly respectful of the past, as shown in a hilarious sequence where the inability to drive stick-shift prevents someone’s escape from the coming clown.

    “Clown in a Cornfield” is one of those movies that doesn’t make you think. And we need those.

  • ‘Final Destination’ is so 2025

    ‘Final Destination’ is so 2025

    The United States in the year 2000 feels like a distant echo. It was the homestretch of the dot-com boom (long before tech figured out how to profit from our dopamine). Blonde highlights and low-rise jeans reigned. The bubble separating us from worldwide and domestic atrocities was still relatively thick and pliable, and media consisted mostly of TV news, radio and the good old Sunday edition. Dial-up internet was emerging as an information source, with chatrooms popping up like secret tunnels for kids to chat outside parental notice.

    There was no war, no Y2K (whew) and Destiny’s Child topped the Billboard Hot 100 with “Say My Name.” So the release of “Final Destination” — a horror movie about a group of teens that avoid certain death only to suffer it reclaiming them one by one — likely felt like just another schlocky horror exercise. Just swap out the masked man for inevitable doom itself, along with a garden variety of ways to go.

    The country receiving “Final Destination: Bloodlines” in 2025 is a different story. Horrors seemingly lurk around every corner — from the climate crisis, to systemic injustice, to unthinkably powerful AI, to the price of eggs, to brutal and divisive politics. Many of these burdens were present 25 years ago, but our relentless access to them and the inflammatory opinions around them now follow us on small screens wherever we go. Online rabbit holes drag our morale down with a video, a Google search, the first, second and third articles; tiny Rube Goldberg machines on a data plan.

    So the idea of saying something to your friends, spinning around in the street and getting turned into human soup by a speeding bus just makes sense on an existential level. Or being accidentally strangled in the shower, barbecued in a tanning bed or falling from a massive skyward restaurant due to a spoiled kid chucking a penny from it. The feeling of being stalked by an unseen horror feels so 2025.

    The most recent installment of “Final Destination” is one of the better entries in the franchise — a film about the decisions of a previous generation leading to certain doom for its descendants. Sound familiar?

    In “Bloodlines,” Iris (Brec Bassinger) attends the opening of a high-rise restaurant with her fiancé, and is killed in an epic structural collapse. This is revealed to be the violent and recurring nightmare of the college student Stefanie (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), Iris’ granddaughter. Stefanie heads back home to track down her estranged but alive grandmother, and deadly shenanigans ensue when she re-enters the mix with her family, which has to band together as death comes knocking.

    Like most horror tentpoles, these movies have a formulaic design. They start with a premonition of a disaster that kills many, a handful of characters escape the situation and because they were meant to die, death comes after them, offing them in a number of gory, grisly ways. The group thinks they’ve broken the curse, and as the final little twist, they haven’t. Picture wrap. 

    Among the usual horror movie quality factors such as memorability of the cast and quality of the kills, perhaps the factor most determinant in the success of a “Final Destination” movie is how it riffs on the formula.

    The riff in “Bloodlines” is the family component. Rather than following the order that the characters were meant to die in during the premonition — as most entries do — this one follows the characters by family tree and age, as none of them should have existed. This creates a side dish of dysfunctional family comedy. Tensions, grudges and guilt are all brought to the surface by the tragic events.

    The entire family is very well cast, particularly Richard Harmon as cousin Erik, who brims with the sarcastic confidence of a suburban man with tattoos. He is also the centerpiece of a set piece involving a nose ring, a ceiling fan and a chain. What an opportunity.

    The opening disaster sequence is the best in the franchise since the massive multi-vehicle freeway crash in “Final Destination 2.” Set in the ‘60s, the fits, tunes and decorations of the restaurant are louder than the sound of glass cracking below it. The Rube Goldberg machine is started up early, and the build to chaos is slower and more torturous than usual. When it goes down, the chaotic sequence plays out like revolving restaurant “Titanic.” But with a lot more CG carnage.

    There is no shortage of creative kills and thrills, but the show is ultimately stolen by a visibly ill Tony Todd in the second act. He reprises his roll as William Bludworth, a mythical coroner who waxes poetic about the will of death with a booming bass of a voice. He has been present in nearly every installment of “Final Destination” before passing away last year. In his last appearance as a key character in a horror franchise about death, his focus shifts to life.

    “Life is precious. Savor every second you’ve got.”

    The sudden turn to sincerity might seem abrupt to those who don’t have the context. But to those who follow this franchise, it’s a moment of real meaning in a series that doesn’t have much of it.

    Like so much IP before it, the “Final Destination” story outlives some of its cast. And a whopping $51 million of business at the opening weekend box office ensures it won’t be stopping anytime soon.