May 30, 2025 • 15 mins
Killer clowns lurking in cornfields isn't just the stuff of nightmares anymore - it's the premise of Adam Cesar's popular horror novel that recently made its way to the big screen. Has the adaptation captured the gory essence that earned the book its 4.2-star rating across thousands of reviews, or is this another case of page-to-screen disappointment?
Welcome to a special hot take episode where Dani flies solo to break down everything "Clowns in a Cornfield."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey guys, welcome to Apartment Theater, to the hot
take of Solely Dani, just togive you guys an outlook of
everything right now.
We haven't stopped our show, wejust are doing a lot less.
We started to get burned out alot by it doing episodes every
single week and we don't.
(00:21):
We enjoy doing this and wedon't want to stop per se.
So we're going to recordepisodes together when there's
something that all of us want tosee and talk about.
But we will be live on YouTubeand stuff with horror games or
just game nights.
So you can go check us out onour YouTube at Abartment Theater
(00:41):
.
So you can go check us out onour YouTube at Abartman Theater.
Or you can check out me orJustin, who stream on our
channels alone and tend to be oneach other's streams like every
night, every other night, whichis Digital Bam Bam or Cuddly
Macaroon.
It should be linked in, likeour bios on whatever you might
(01:06):
be listening to this on.
But just a heads up, we're notdone.
Episodes are just a littlelighter than usual.
So in the meantime, danny's hottake of Clowns in a Cornfield
so Clowns in a Cornfield justcame out May 9th.
(01:27):
It is based off the novel Clownin a Cornfield by Adam Cesar
Cesar.
You know what I'm going to?
Just All right, google ain'tshowing me how to pronounce it
for some reason.
But Adam is an American authorof horror novels and short
(01:49):
stories.
He, I guess, wrote this one andI was getting conflicting stuff
when I was Googling around thatthis was meant to eventually
become a film or this just gotpicked up as a film.
But either way, you can listento his Cloud and Chord Field on
(02:09):
audiobooks.
It's on Amazon, barnes andNobles and then a lot of local
libraries.
It looks like has shown up mylocal libraries.
The book itself seems to bevery popular.
It has a really good starrating.
I mean the one on Amazon has3,800 reviews with a 4.2 rating,
which I think is pretty great.
(02:29):
92% on Google reviews, I dohear it's pretty gory.
So if you like gory horrorbooks, definitely, I guess,
check it out.
(02:50):
But now to the main event of myhot take of Clouds in a
Cornfield.
This, I feel, would probably bea better comparison if I like
also read the book or something.
But I only watched the movieand I do know how, nine out of
10 times, books that becomemovies tend to leave out a lot
of stuff or just generally notbe as good, definitely because
(03:11):
you're not able to pack in a lotof information.
It's not like that with everyadaptation from books to movies,
but with a good portion of ityou do see it.
Of course you get your moviesthat go out of the leagues and
they still do well, like Lord ofthe Rings, harry Potter, the
(03:32):
Hunger Games, but even all ofthem still had missing stuff.
So I'm going to assume by thatsame that's going here.
The movie felt very fast-paced,of course.
Um, it is entertaining to watch.
I had a good time watching it.
(03:52):
It's definitely a campy comedy,kind of horror, or at least
that's how I took it, as it'slisted as a horror crime, um,
but I I would see it more as ahorror comedy.
Um, but how can you not haveclowns in the movie and laugh,
right?
I guess I don't know.
(04:14):
Uh, so quinn is our maincharacter that we fall.
Uh, follow around in the story.
Um, quinn and her father movedto the quiet town of kettle
springs and soon learned.
The fractured community hasfallen on hard times after
losing a treasured factory to afire.
As the locals bicker amongstthemselves and tension boils
over, a sinister grinning clownemerges from the cornfield to
(04:37):
cleanse the town of its burdens,one bloody victim at a time.
So that's what it's listed as,okay.
So this also says it's lookingfor a fresh start.
Quinn and her father move.
She did not want to move, shestates it in the movie.
She only moved to help herfather try to um overcome the
(05:00):
emotions he was feeling from hiswife overdosing and dying, and
he becomes this local town's newdoctor.
Of course, I mean, if you'removing to a small town, you
already know it's not going tobe that great.
We mean the main like group, Iguess posse.
(05:22):
In the first like ten minuteswhen Quinn goes to school, she
opens her front door to the kidthat's down the street, rust.
I like him a lot.
He's socially awkward and Ienjoy that because I too am
socially awkward.
Um, he is trying to be, I guess, nice and be like show quinn
(05:48):
around, tell quinn to be friendswith not shitty people and of
course she becomes friends withthe shitty main cast.
Um, it's all like your typical,like 90s horror movie.
(06:08):
Um, that's what I really was.
Getting a lot of feels from it.
Um, I felt like I watched itbefore somewhere kind of thing
didn't make it any lessenjoyable.
I still enjoyed it the wholetime, um, but it just felt very
familiar.
And when you meet the main cast,they're all kind of assholes.
They prank the teacher theteacher's also an asshole, but
(06:30):
it I kind of understand hisreaction to like giving the kids
detention because they werekind of shitty, and this seems
like something that definitelyled up to some like to shit and
like the main cast, uh, pullpranks all the time and post on
(06:54):
like I'm gonna assume probablytiktok kind of thing or like
youtube, to like get views, andthat's all they care about is
views, views, views.
Uh, the one blonde bitch that'sall she talks about is getting
views.
They even pull a prank on quinn, which is really fucked up, um,
and make her think the one kiddied in front of her, and he
(07:20):
really didn't.
But one thing it does show iswhen you prank around a lot,
when things get serious, it'shard for people to take you
seriously, like the boy whocried wolf sort of deal.
And so when they start gettingkilled and kids start getting
(07:42):
killed because you know, I guessthat's just what you do when
everything is just kill all thekids, why not?
And so there's that they allhave a party and then just start
getting massacred like freakingchickens or something, like
(08:05):
they all just bam dash.
Just I don't know the sensemaking here of why killing the
kids is going to solve anything.
But you know who am I?
But a stand-by-er orstand-by-ee?
So as you follow Quinnthroughout the movie, she starts
(08:27):
getting what you think isrelationship vibes with Cole,
which is the mayor's son, whohas a troubled past.
He's blamed for his sister'sdeath and he didn't.
It was just a very horribleaccident but it was easy to
blame him.
And when you are dealing withtrauma or you're just trying to
(08:53):
find an easy way out, you willrationalize and pick the easiest
thing to try to rationalize,instead of maybe even blaming
yourself, like he wasn'twatching his daughter or
something.
So he blames the son.
You know stuff like that.
So the father blames the son,which you find out later and you
(09:14):
think this is just one clownkilling everybody.
No, no, no, it is all of theadults killing people or killing
kids, just killing the kids.
Um, like I, I I think like 45minutes in, when I was watching
(09:35):
it with John, I realized that itwas definitely a cult-y kind of
thing, if that makes sense.
Not really a cult, because theyaren't worshiping anything, but
they are definitely in thistogether to try to make things
better at the end, I guess.
Try to make things better atthe end, I guess.
And uh, it's.
(09:57):
It's just got a lot of likeinteresting deaths in it, some
superhuman strength deaths likeI.
They definitely are on roids orsomething.
The way they lift up, like someof these girls, like the girls
(10:19):
definitely are tiny, very, verytiny, probably no more than 120
pounds, but to lift somebody 120pounds up in the air on the end
of a stick is impressive, likevery impressive.
Um, as a whole, the movie was alot to like, really digest,
because just so much washappening.
(10:39):
Again, like with any book,there's just a lot of
information to process.
I am going to be making acosplay for Boston Comic Con, so
maybe I will go and listen tothe book and maybe come back
with a double take of the bookcompared to the movie.
(11:00):
But when it's just a movie byitself, it's entertaining, fun
to watch.
I would suggest it had a goodlaugh.
The squeaky shoes were prettygreat on the clowns.
I definitely wouldn't suggestthat when you're sneaking up on
people, but you know why not Um,the dad from uh or the Mandy's
(11:26):
dad from um, young Sheldon's init he's a cop but also a killer
clown, so that's a thing.
The main actress is adorable andvery short.
She's like a solid five foot,because I had to look it up
because she looked like the restof the cast looked like they
were like six feet tall orsomething and she was like an
(11:50):
average height.
But no, she was just five footand everybody else was just on
the taller end and made her looksuper short.
Um, the acting was okay in it.
Uh, it wasn't horrible.
It wasn't great but wasn'thorrible.
So I'd say, definitely give ita watch.
(12:13):
Like I don't know what else Ihave to say about this.
This is one crappy thing aboutdoing a hot take by yourself.
It's just like when there's somuch to take in and you just got
so much to talk about, I'mpretty sure I just for 13
minutes didn't talk aboutanything other than just it's a
movie.
(12:34):
That was a book and the book isreally good, I guess, and the
movie's okay, just like anyother book that became a movie.
Um, the character that playsRust kept making me think of
that character from Wednesday.
What's his face man?
(12:55):
I can't think of his name TylerHunter Doohan or something.
What's his face man?
I can't think of his name TylerHunter Doohan or something.
He kind of looked like him, butwhen I looked it up, this kid
doesn't have a really hugeacting list.
He's got like a couple thingsin him, but not much.
He's Riverdale or something,but yeah, he looks like that guy
(13:18):
.
Maybe they're related.
Nope, definitely not related.
I just looked at their lastnames definitely not related.
They look related though.
So there's that.
Um, the movie definitely sets upfor a sequel.
Is there going to be a sequel,who knows?
For $100 million budget.
(13:38):
I think the movie did greatwhen most budgets need more to
them than just that and got less.
Some of the kills in it weredefinitely Final Destination-y
(14:00):
and just were very comedic.
But yeah, that's really all Igot to say about Clown in a
Cornfield.
It's entertaining.
I suggest watching it.
It's an audiobook too, so maybego listen to it.
I hear it's okay.
Yeah, otherwise, check us outon YouTube.
(14:24):
Uh, apartment Theater.
You actually have to put in anApartment Theater podcast,
because otherwise, um, actualApartment Theaters come up on
how to make them in your house,which you know what Power to you
if you do that.
But, um, if you want to watchus live and play some horror
games and stuff, that's theeasiest way to find us.
Like I said in the beginning,we're going to definitely try to
record when we all see a movie,but we're just trying not to
(14:46):
burn ourselves out.
I really wanted to see thismovie.
I put a vote up on Spotify.
So definitely check out theSpotify because I'm going to try
to keep up some polls on thereabout movies like maybe we
should watch, or even commentson there, because we can see
your comments off of that atleast of maybe suggestions and
(15:06):
we'll see in the future.
But as of right now, we're notgone.
We just might be like a week ortwo in between takes.
But definitely check out thenext episode where I'm gonna
have another hot take and thathot take is gonna be on Bring
Her Back, which I am excited,trying to see if I could drag
Justin and Cass into it.
(15:26):
They're they're a little on itlike if they want to see it or
not, but either way, I'll beback for that hot take and, um,
yeah, check us out on YouTubeand get the fuck out.
Bye.
Hey guys, welcome to Apartment Theater, to the hot
take of Solely Dani, just togive you guys an outlook of
everything right now.
We haven't stopped our show, wejust are doing a lot less.
We started to get burned out alot by it doing episodes every
single week and we don't.
(00:21):
We enjoy doing this and wedon't want to stop per se.
So we're going to recordepisodes together when there's
something that all of us want tosee and talk about.
But we will be live on YouTubeand stuff with horror games or
just game nights.
So you can go check us out onour YouTube at Abartment Theater
(00:41):
.
So you can go check us out onour YouTube at Abartman Theater.
Or you can check out me orJustin, who stream on our
channels alone and tend to be oneach other's streams like every
night, every other night, whichis Digital Bam Bam or Cuddly
Macaroon.
It should be linked in, likeour bios on whatever you might
(01:06):
be listening to this on.
But just a heads up, we're notdone.
Episodes are just a littlelighter than usual.
So in the meantime, danny's hottake of Clowns in a Cornfield
so Clowns in a Cornfield justcame out May 9th.
(01:27):
It is based off the novel Clownin a Cornfield by Adam Cesar
Cesar.
You know what I'm going to?
Just All right, google ain'tshowing me how to pronounce it
for some reason.
But Adam is an American authorof horror novels and short
(01:49):
stories.
He, I guess, wrote this one andI was getting conflicting stuff
when I was Googling around thatthis was meant to eventually
become a film or this just gotpicked up as a film.
But either way, you can listento his Cloud and Chord Field on
(02:09):
audiobooks.
It's on Amazon, barnes andNobles and then a lot of local
libraries.
It looks like has shown up mylocal libraries.
The book itself seems to bevery popular.
It has a really good starrating.
I mean the one on Amazon has3,800 reviews with a 4.2 rating,
which I think is pretty great.
(02:29):
92% on Google reviews, I dohear it's pretty gory.
So if you like gory horrorbooks, definitely, I guess,
check it out.
(02:50):
But now to the main event of myhot take of Clouds in a
Cornfield.
This, I feel, would probably bea better comparison if I like
also read the book or something.
But I only watched the movieand I do know how, nine out of
10 times, books that becomemovies tend to leave out a lot
of stuff or just generally notbe as good, definitely because
(03:11):
you're not able to pack in a lotof information.
It's not like that with everyadaptation from books to movies,
but with a good portion of ityou do see it.
Of course you get your moviesthat go out of the leagues and
they still do well, like Lord ofthe Rings, harry Potter, the
(03:32):
Hunger Games, but even all ofthem still had missing stuff.
So I'm going to assume by thatsame that's going here.
The movie felt very fast-paced,of course.
Um, it is entertaining to watch.
I had a good time watching it.
(03:52):
It's definitely a campy comedy,kind of horror, or at least
that's how I took it, as it'slisted as a horror crime, um,
but I I would see it more as ahorror comedy.
Um, but how can you not haveclowns in the movie and laugh,
right?
I guess I don't know.
(04:14):
Uh, so quinn is our maincharacter that we fall.
Uh, follow around in the story.
Um, quinn and her father movedto the quiet town of kettle
springs and soon learned.
The fractured community hasfallen on hard times after
losing a treasured factory to afire.
As the locals bicker amongstthemselves and tension boils
over, a sinister grinning clownemerges from the cornfield to
(04:37):
cleanse the town of its burdens,one bloody victim at a time.
So that's what it's listed as,okay.
So this also says it's lookingfor a fresh start.
Quinn and her father move.
She did not want to move, shestates it in the movie.
She only moved to help herfather try to um overcome the
(05:00):
emotions he was feeling from hiswife overdosing and dying, and
he becomes this local town's newdoctor.
Of course, I mean, if you'removing to a small town, you
already know it's not going tobe that great.
We mean the main like group, Iguess posse.
(05:22):
In the first like ten minuteswhen Quinn goes to school, she
opens her front door to the kidthat's down the street, rust.
I like him a lot.
He's socially awkward and Ienjoy that because I too am
socially awkward.
Um, he is trying to be, I guess, nice and be like show quinn
(05:48):
around, tell quinn to be friendswith not shitty people and of
course she becomes friends withthe shitty main cast.
Um, it's all like your typical,like 90s horror movie.
(06:08):
Um, that's what I really was.
Getting a lot of feels from it.
Um, I felt like I watched itbefore somewhere kind of thing
didn't make it any lessenjoyable.
I still enjoyed it the wholetime, um, but it just felt very
familiar.
And when you meet the main cast,they're all kind of assholes.
They prank the teacher theteacher's also an asshole, but
(06:30):
it I kind of understand hisreaction to like giving the kids
detention because they werekind of shitty, and this seems
like something that definitelyled up to some like to shit and
like the main cast, uh, pullpranks all the time and post on
(06:54):
like I'm gonna assume probablytiktok kind of thing or like
youtube, to like get views, andthat's all they care about is
views, views, views.
Uh, the one blonde bitch that'sall she talks about is getting
views.
They even pull a prank on quinn, which is really fucked up, um,
and make her think the one kiddied in front of her, and he
(07:20):
really didn't.
But one thing it does show iswhen you prank around a lot,
when things get serious, it'shard for people to take you
seriously, like the boy whocried wolf sort of deal.
And so when they start gettingkilled and kids start getting
(07:42):
killed because you know, I guessthat's just what you do when
everything is just kill all thekids, why not?
And so there's that they allhave a party and then just start
getting massacred like freakingchickens or something, like
(08:05):
they all just bam dash.
Just I don't know the sensemaking here of why killing the
kids is going to solve anything.
But you know who am I?
But a stand-by-er orstand-by-ee?
So as you follow Quinnthroughout the movie, she starts
(08:27):
getting what you think isrelationship vibes with Cole,
which is the mayor's son, whohas a troubled past.
He's blamed for his sister'sdeath and he didn't.
It was just a very horribleaccident but it was easy to
blame him.
And when you are dealing withtrauma or you're just trying to
(08:53):
find an easy way out, you willrationalize and pick the easiest
thing to try to rationalize,instead of maybe even blaming
yourself, like he wasn'twatching his daughter or
something.
So he blames the son.
You know stuff like that.
So the father blames the son,which you find out later and you
(09:14):
think this is just one clownkilling everybody.
No, no, no, it is all of theadults killing people or killing
kids, just killing the kids.
Um, like I, I I think like 45minutes in, when I was watching
(09:35):
it with John, I realized that itwas definitely a cult-y kind of
thing, if that makes sense.
Not really a cult, because theyaren't worshiping anything, but
they are definitely in thistogether to try to make things
better at the end, I guess.
Try to make things better atthe end, I guess.
And uh, it's.
(09:57):
It's just got a lot of likeinteresting deaths in it, some
superhuman strength deaths likeI.
They definitely are on roids orsomething.
The way they lift up, like someof these girls, like the girls
(10:19):
definitely are tiny, very, verytiny, probably no more than 120
pounds, but to lift somebody 120pounds up in the air on the end
of a stick is impressive, likevery impressive.
Um, as a whole, the movie was alot to like, really digest,
because just so much washappening.
(10:39):
Again, like with any book,there's just a lot of
information to process.
I am going to be making acosplay for Boston Comic Con, so
maybe I will go and listen tothe book and maybe come back
with a double take of the bookcompared to the movie.
(11:00):
But when it's just a movie byitself, it's entertaining, fun
to watch.
I would suggest it had a goodlaugh.
The squeaky shoes were prettygreat on the clowns.
I definitely wouldn't suggestthat when you're sneaking up on
people, but you know why not Um,the dad from uh or the Mandy's
(11:26):
dad from um, young Sheldon's init he's a cop but also a killer
clown, so that's a thing.
The main actress is adorable andvery short.
She's like a solid five foot,because I had to look it up
because she looked like the restof the cast looked like they
were like six feet tall orsomething and she was like an
(11:50):
average height.
But no, she was just five footand everybody else was just on
the taller end and made her looksuper short.
Um, the acting was okay in it.
Uh, it wasn't horrible.
It wasn't great but wasn'thorrible.
So I'd say, definitely give ita watch.
(12:13):
Like I don't know what else Ihave to say about this.
This is one crappy thing aboutdoing a hot take by yourself.
It's just like when there's somuch to take in and you just got
so much to talk about, I'mpretty sure I just for 13
minutes didn't talk aboutanything other than just it's a
movie.
(12:34):
That was a book and the book isreally good, I guess, and the
movie's okay, just like anyother book that became a movie.
Um, the character that playsRust kept making me think of
that character from Wednesday.
What's his face man?
(12:55):
I can't think of his name TylerHunter Doohan or something.
What's his face man?
I can't think of his name TylerHunter Doohan or something.
He kind of looked like him, butwhen I looked it up, this kid
doesn't have a really hugeacting list.
He's got like a couple thingsin him, but not much.
He's Riverdale or something,but yeah, he looks like that guy
(13:18):
.
Maybe they're related.
Nope, definitely not related.
I just looked at their lastnames definitely not related.
They look related though.
So there's that.
Um, the movie definitely sets upfor a sequel.
Is there going to be a sequel,who knows?
For $100 million budget.
(13:38):
I think the movie did greatwhen most budgets need more to
them than just that and got less.
Some of the kills in it weredefinitely Final Destination-y
(14:00):
and just were very comedic.
But yeah, that's really all Igot to say about Clown in a
Cornfield.
It's entertaining.
I suggest watching it.
It's an audiobook too, so maybego listen to it.
I hear it's okay.
Yeah, otherwise, check us outon YouTube.
(14:24):
Uh, apartment Theater.
You actually have to put in anApartment Theater podcast,
because otherwise, um, actualApartment Theaters come up on
how to make them in your house,which you know what Power to you
if you do that.
But, um, if you want to watchus live and play some horror
games and stuff, that's theeasiest way to find us.
Like I said in the beginning,we're going to definitely try to
record when we all see a movie,but we're just trying not to
(14:46):
burn ourselves out.
I really wanted to see thismovie.
I put a vote up on Spotify.
So definitely check out theSpotify because I'm going to try
to keep up some polls on thereabout movies like maybe we
should watch, or even commentson there, because we can see
your comments off of that atleast of maybe suggestions and
(15:06):
we'll see in the future.
But as of right now, we're notgone.
We just might be like a week ortwo in between takes.
But definitely check out thenext episode where I'm gonna
have another hot take and thathot take is gonna be on Bring
Her Back, which I am excited,trying to see if I could drag
Justin and Cass into it.
(15:26):
They're they're a little on itlike if they want to see it or
not, but either way, I'll beback for that hot take and, um,
yeah, check us out on YouTubeand get the fuck out.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.