Review: Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

Title: Clown in a Cornfield

Author: Adam Cesare

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publishing Date: August 25th, 2020

Pages: 352 
Audio Length: 7 Hours and 45 Minutes

Genre: YA Horror
TW: Murdering of kids

Series: Standalone

Source: ARC provided by the publisher

 

Quinn Maybrook just wants to make it until graduation. She might not make it to morning.
Quinn and her father moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs to find a fresh start. But ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.
Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now.

I am terrified TERRIFIED of clowns. And I love being terrified and I love creepy and I love horror. So of course I had to pick this book up. I did think it was going to be more 80's b list horror instead of... slasher horror? But either way it was terrifying. 



That cover is certainly creepy and matches the book well. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to check it out.



Oh the story. Where do I start with this story? It's creepy. It's scary. It's downright terrifying. As I said I'm terrified of clowns and so the fact that this mass murder happens not only BY clowns but also in a cornfield, which is another thing I'm completely creeped out by.

The only thing that i had a problem with is that I was expecting the "who"and the "why" to be a bit different. It's not necessarily a bad thing that it wasn't what I was expecting, just... different. 



This one does start out a little bit slow. I think it took to about 40% by the time it really started going. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it built up to the "why" the clowns are attacking. And then once they start attacking it's not slow anymore and I found myself not wanting to stop reading, I just had to know what was going on and what was going to happen.



I think I've mentioned a few times in this review how creepy of a book it is. I think the author did a really good job in writing a very well done and horrifying book. It's creepy to even just think of something like in this book happening and then the author took it and made it feel real. 



I literally only cared about like 3 characters in this book. Quinn was okay, I like Cole, but Rust is my favorite by far. 

Other than that every last one of them got on my nerves and I did not care even a little if they died. 

I did feel like they were written well though, they all had personality and felt as if they were real people.



Let me tell you I could picture the corn maze and being lost in it and I was not okay with that. I mean I was but, I wasn't. Because it made the book and the scary of it that much more real.



Maybe the author was trying to set up for a book 2? I don't know, but the ending was kind of just meh. 



This was definitely a creepy scary read that had me not wanting to put it down.

“Quinn looked to the horizon as the cornstalks swayed with the breeze. The corn itself could have been waving hello, or it could have been breathing.
― Adam Cesare, Clown in a Cornfield

Adam Cesare is a New Yorker who lives in Philadelphia. His books include Clown in a Cornfield, Video Night, The Summer Job, and Zero Lives Remaining. He’s an avid fan of horror cinema and runs Project: Black T-Shirt, a YouTube review show where he takes horror films and pairs them with reading suggestions

Netflix and Thrill Remakes: The Blair Witch Project, The Crazies, and Pet Sematary

Netflix and Thrill is a feature where I review horror movies I've watched recently.

I have decided that I want to watch original horror movies and their remakes so I can compare and review and talk about which I like better. So here is the first post of remakes. 

Title: The Blair Witch Project

Release Date: July 30th, 1999

Stars: Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams

Watched on: Vudu (Can also be found on Prime if you have Starz)

 

Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.

Title: Blair Witch

Release Date: September 16th, 2016

Stars: JamesAllen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, Brandon Scott

Watched on: Vudu 

After discovering a video showing what he believes to be his vanished sister Heather, James and a group of friends head to the forest believed to be inhabited by the Blair Witch.

What I thought:

So bits and pieces of these movies are the same. They both are found footage films, which is good because if the remake wasn't then it would be absolute crap and not really a remake. Anyway, they both deal with an urban legend of the blair witch. They both have teens/adults whatever going into the woods and getting lost, and they both have crazy possessed or haunted houses.

So in theory these movies are very much the same. But not really.

In the original Blair Witch Project it was very slow. They get lost, but nothing really actually happens to them up until the end. It was really very slow, and boring. I can't believe so many people loved that movie.

The new one is so fast paced and has things happen almost from the beginning. I was actually pretty freaked out when watching the new one, and that's not easy to do anymore. The acting is better, I feel like the story line was better, and the jump scares are pretty legit. 

I also just figured out that it's more of a continuation, than a remake. But I'm still counting it. 

Title: The Crazies 

Release Date: March 16th, 1973

Stars: Lane Carroll, Will MacMillan, Harold Wayne Jones
Watched on: Amazon Prime

The military attempts to contain a manmade combat virus that causes death and permanent insanity in those infected, as it overtakes a small Pennsylvania town.

Title: The Crazies 

Release Date: February 26th, 2010

Stars: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker

Watched on: Amazon Prime 

After a strange and insecure plane crash, an unusual toxic virus enters a quaint farming town. A young couple are quarantined, but they fight for survival along with help from a couple of people.

What I thought:
I couldn't even get through the original, I found it to be really slow and boring. I'm thinking movies from the 60's and 70's were much slower than newer ones. Either way, I said nope. 
So I watched the remake and it was decent. I watched it years ago and thought it was meh. From what I watched of the original the remake is quite different.
I don't think I really care for either of these, and because I didn't watch the original I can't really compare. 

Title: Pet Sematary
Release Date: April 21, 1989

Stars: Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby
Watched on: Prime

After tragedy strikes, a grieving father discovers an ancient burial ground behind his home with the power to raise the dead.

Title: Pet Sematary

Release Date: April 5th, 2019

Stars: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow, Jete Laurence

Watched on: Hulu

Dr. Louis Creed and his wife, Rachel, relocate from Boston to rural Maine with their two young children. The couple soon discover a mysterious burial ground hidden deep in the woods near their new home. 

What I thought:

I have been a Pet Sematary fan for quite a few years. I read the book and I loved the original movie a lot. So when I found out they were doing a remake I absolutely had to go see it in theaters with the Hubby.
The original is closer to the book, however I found it to be just a little slow. It didn't have many jump scares, which I love in my movies. It was more of a slow burner.
The new one however scared the living daylights out of me. There was a lot more fast paced action, jump scares, and honestly more "scary" elements. It was just all around creepier. 
I also really loved the twist in the new one. A lot of people didn't like it, but I think it's great that they made the daughter be the one who died. I feel like it made it creepier and more intense.
Some of the differences I found were first of all like I said above that it was Ellie who died not Gage in this one. The way that she died was a bit different, a bit less graphic than with Gage. They had a bit more backstory about the Pet Sematary. And also more about her sister, which was the scariest part of the whole movie I swear.
I love the original but I definitely love the new one more.