While he may not be the first person that people think of when they think of great modern day horror film directors, but Eli Craig is somebody that should certainly be on the radar of any true horror fanatic.
After all this is the man that wrote and directed one of the best horror comedies of all time – Tucker & Dale Vs Evil – and has now brought the classic 1990s style slasher flick back to the big screen with his latest film Clown In A Cornfield.
Recently I had the opportunity to have a quick chat with Eli about his latest film and I started by asking him how the journey of turning Adam Cesare’s novel into a film began for him.
“It actually started during the pandemic,” he explains. “Just when the book first came out. That was late 2020 and I read an early draft of the script that had been together by Carter Blanchard and I remember when I read it I was thinking ‘oh yeah this could be a lot of fun.’
“Then I went back and read Adam Cesare’s book and I remember being blown away about the depth and how the elements all came together,” he goes on to say. “There was this wonderful three act structure and I knew I had to adapt it. So, I took a stab at the script and the guys at Temple Hill loved my version of it because I had a little more comedy and a little more character elements. And then of course it was just a matter of finding the financing which we really didn’t know would come together because all the major studios passed on it so we ended up doing the movie independently.”
“And I’ve got to say we didn’t have a tonne money,” he continues. “But we found enough to be able to make it and it really does feel like a blessing because we were the under dogs and we just had to go and find the money ourselves.”
One of the most surprising things about Clown In A Cornfield is that depth to character and plot that is there in the film so I asked Eli to elaborate on what the depth was that made him so interested in the project.
“Even the title itself is kind of satire in itself, right?” he asks laughing. “It is poking fun at something about horror but once I got a little deeper into the book I realised that it is also poking fun at America and it also pokes fun at American history so. You know corn is really an American crop and these cornfields in the mid-west are huge and it is one of the ones that farmers have made a lot of money in America over a long period of time and in the 1930s and 1940s when corn syrup first became an alternative to sugar it was seen as a cure all. So I found that it had something to do with this American positivity and destiny and of course corn syrup has turned out to be this terrible thing for people because it causes diabetes and sicknesses but in the 40s kids were taking it with their cereal and would eat corn syrup by the spoonful so there is something so comparable to America and it’s profitability, positivity and forward-thing versus this decaying America that is falling apart with Clowns In A Cornfield. There are a lot of levels but that is the part that really got me.”
The other big part of Clown In A Cornfield is the exploration of what it is like living in small Midwest town for teenagers of today and that is something that Eli said he went and did a little bit of research on.
“Yeah, I researched it a little,” he says. “I’ve driven through towns like that in the past because I lived in Colorado for a long time. I had friends who lived out in Kansas when I lived in Colorado and Kansas is a big corn state. I also had a friend who lived just outside of Kansas City so I was very aware of small-town pride. To be honest I didn’t want to make fun of that so I actually embraced small-town pride in the film. And I loved that part of it and being able to do that but also at the same time there is a darkness in holding onto something that is past its time and part of what this town is doing is holding onto Friendo (the clown) – the town is holding onto the past and they want the past to be back and not only that but they want to bring the past back themselves and that causes a lot of conflict with the younger generation who want to move forward into a more prosperous future. So, that is the divide – the generational divide – of the story.”
With Tucker & Dale Vs Evil Eli was able to go all out with the comedy but with Clown In A Cornfield he had to find a way to mix small comedic moments within a true slasher film so I asked whether or not that was a difficult obstacle to overcome.
“Well, I wanted the comedy this time to be really targeted,” he explains. “Because really I wanted this to be really suspenseful. With Tucker & Dale there are some moments that are really action like and maybe there is some suspense but really it is just a fun ride and it is very, very humorous all the way through so this time around I wanted it to be different. I like my films to have an element of horror but often when people find themselves in a horrible situation that start laughing at how ridiculous it is so that is one of my problems with horror movies when they are just too dark, too stern and totally too flat so I just wanted to make a movie that kind of broke the tonal mode of horror sometimes and add my own occasional comedic beat. But also at the same time I didn’t want to walk on the suspense or horror so it was a really tough balance but this was my stab at it.”
As we talk more about the style of the film we begin talking about that classic period of time when films like Jeepers Creepers, Disturbing Behaviour and The Faculty were being released in cinemas so I ask whether films of that period influenced Eli at all with Clown In The Cornfield.
“Yes,” he answers very quickly. “There are some times in the film where I wanted to satirise some specific horror references but also horror just kind of lives in my brain. It’s kind of like a catalogue but it is all the stuff that I grew up watching in the 80s and 90s. Honestly, I can’t always pick out where something came from and then someone like comes along and says ‘hey that’s like this, is that where it is from?’ and then other people start picking it out as well and I will be like ‘oh God he is right, it is from that and I do remember seeing that movie.’ But really I just go with my gut a lot and sometimes my gut is really playfully playing with these tropes that I grew up with.”
The other important part that works so well with this film is the amount of work that has been put into the characterisation throughout the film and Eli says that is no accident.
“Absolutely characterisation is important,” he states. “I like to call myself an actor’s director. I like my actors to know the characters that they are playing through and through. I don’t think you feel there is a real threat if you don’t believe that they are real characters. So to me that is where you get your suspense. Even with Tucker & Dale I think the suspense comes from you thinking ‘please don’t you dare kill these people because I care about them’ and in this movie some of the people that you do care about do die and I think that is where the suspense and the real horror comes from you don’t know who is going to make it exactly!”
Clown In A Cornfield is showing in cinemas now.
