Series review by Andrew Evans aka the Pickleball Librarian
I have the luxury of presenting books I really enjoy. Since it’s spooky season, I decided to look into one of the more popular books that has been made into a movie and then a series. Let’s just say I read them so that you don’t have to!
The title of the three-book series and now Netflix movie probably conjured up Stephen King’s “It” and “Children of the Corn,” but it’s neither of those! It’s a very unique story. So unique that movie rights were sold before the first book was even published!
Book 1- “Clown in the Cornfield”
Without giving too much away, the book uses the fictional small town of Kettle Springs, Missouri. In many ways, that place is a metaphor for the Midwest and how things are changing. The old guard is forcibly being pulled along.
Author Adam Cesare makes Kettle Springs very representative of the Midwest. A lot of people think the Midwest is only white people, but Cesare adds a lot of diversity with people of color and LGBTQIA representation. The Midwest is more diverse than many people think it is.
Kids in Kettle Springs are like other kids in the U.S. They’re regularly glued to their phones and often posting stunts on social media. They’re just being outrageous and get too carried away. At one point, a young woman is killed.
The older residents are finally fed up and decide to do something about it. From there, all hell breaks loose and lots of people are killed! Beware of the creepy clown Frendo!
Book 2- “Frendo Lives”
One characteristic of slasher stories is sequels. Social media doesn’t play a large part in the following books in the series. Instead each sequential book takes on a different theme.
Book 2 takes the action up a notch. In the first story, the events were very horrific. The thought of how some people handled their problems was unbelievable. So now, we have a bunch of conspiracy theories! I honestly felt sorry for the kids who had to deal with people claiming what happened did not happen. You’ll often hear the term fake news.
In many ways, this reminded me of the denial surrounding January 6. Many of us watched the events of that horrific day happen in real time. Then we had many of our leaders trying to give us an alternative narrative, which many of us accepted.
The mental gymnastics and similarities between the conspiracy theorist in this book and January 6 had so much in common.
“These people couldn’t keep their story straight. Were last year‘s events an elaborate conspiracy…. They offer some bullshit about personal liberties and freedom, but they’ll lose the threat of their logic along the way.”
Book 3- “The Church of Fresno”
In book 3, the final girl Quinn is back! This time she’s hunting down trouble makers from the previous book. Kinda like how the Department of Justice went after the January 6 insurrectionists or how the Mossad went after the Nazis after WWII.
The focus on this book is cults and religion. Quinn becomes more like Linda Hamilton from the second Terminator movie. I can see a lot of commonalities between cults and what’s going on today.
Quinn said, “By the way, they don’t like it when you compare them to Nazis.”
Another character responded, “I bet they don’t. But if the shiny red nose fits.” My thoughts were if the red hat fits.
The story actually has a church where the clown Frendo is worshiped! A lot of action and fighting ensues.
Book 3 started to do what sequels do to horror movies. Readers start to get series fatigue. I sure did!
Book 4- “Lights! Camera! Fresno!”
Around this time, a movie Clown In The Cornfield based on the first book is released. We’ll cover that later. This now leads us to book 4, which is based on making a movie based on the events of the first book. So we now have a book based on a movie. How hokey can we get?!
During the making of the movie, a lot of the townspeople of Kettle Springs aren’t happy. It seems like some of them go to the extremes of sabotaging the movie.
Book 4 was also a satire on Hollywood. It included a lot of name dropping of actors. Surprise appearances by previous characters in the series appear.
Movie- Clown in a Cornfield
Now for the movie! Is the book always better than the book? Yes, in most cases. The opening scene in the movie is different. The book’s reservoir scene was great! The movie skipped it. While the event was mentioned a few scenes into the movie, it just wasn’t the same.
Where’s the Asians? The actress who played Janet was as Asian as Charlie Chan! Many scenes were changed, but the concept of the clowns was still there. Lots of humor and kids having fun were included. The gore was good for a horror movie.
Of course, the rules of slasher films apply. When teenagers run off to fuck, they die. The person of color is usually one of the first to die. The movie just seemed less original than the book.
The only fun part is quotes that would make interesting memes! “There’s fucking clowns everywhere!” A couple of parts had me laughing.
In the book, it was a mass killing! The townspeople had enough of the teen generation. The movie toned it down. I guess the filmmakers thought it would be too much, despite how we now have school kids doing mass shooter drills.
The film is so formulaic. After writing this review, I reached out to Dané Shobe, one of my favorite actors in Topeka and publisher of Sun Hero Magazine, to see his thoughts. Dané wrote, “Lmao I started watching the movie. The black guy died first. I stopped watching the movie.”
I would say the first book is worth reading. I enjoyed it! I loved how the Midwest is portrayed. The suspense was excellent. The way the town tuned against the kids was downright spooky.
If you are really in love with the characters after that, the rest of the series should entertain you. However, I don’t see many people reading through the whole series. I belong to lots of book clubs, and attend many book festivals and author events. I haven’t met anyone yet who has finished the whole series.
The movie is okay for something to watch during the Halloween season, but it’s nowhere close to the level of Sinners or Weapons. If you need an outstanding horror movie released within the last couple of years, those are what I recommend.
